| Per Fly's INHERITANCE [7/10] |
|
|
| Wednesday, 16 February 2005 | |
|
The countless admirers of Thomas Vinterberg's 1998 masterpiece Festen - the basis for the recent stage hit of the same name - may want to seek out Inheritance, a lesser work which nevertheless recombines some themes and personnel from that film to intriguing effect. Veteran scriptwriter Mogens Rukov had a major hand in both screenplays, and once again, Ulrich Thomsen (whose resemblance to the young Laurence Olivier remains striking) plays the black-sheep scion of a wealthy Danish clan. In Festen he played a character named Christian - this time he's Christoffer, happily running a restaurant in Stockholm where his Swedish wife Maria (Lisa Werlinder) is a successful stage actress. Christoffer has long kept himself a deliberate distance from his stiflingly respectable family's very lucrative steel-mill business - but when his father unexpectedly commits suicide, his glacially formidable mother Annelise (Ghita Norby) exerts maximum maternal-guilt pressure in persuading Christoffer to take up the reins. He reluctantly agrees - and finds himself plunged into corporate intrigues and office politics that take a serious toll on his private life. Christoffer and Maria soon discover that his 'inheritance' is a complex and ultimately destructive affair. For much of its running time Inheritance (the second segment of an informal trilogy whose first section, The Bench, wasn't distributed here) is an almost stereotypically Scandinavian enterprise: dour, chilly, controlled and austere in its formal and visual simplicity - which makes the sudden, violent eruption of long-suppressed emotion in the third act all the more shocking. The points made about claustrophobic family tensions and the unsatisfactory nature of capitalistic big-business structures may be familiar ones, but the director, his scriptwriters, cast and crew go about their business in an arrestingly assured and compelling manner - Harald Gunnar Paalgard's cinematography (blown up from 16mm) deserves special mention - right up to the bracingly downbeat finale. But you never quite manage to lose the nagging shadow cast by Festen over the whole project - and some uncharitable viewers might even go so far as to counsel Mr Vinterberg by (S-)expressing themselves thus: "You should... maybe... sue Per Fly, guy." Neil Young 20th December, 2004 [seen 20th Sep. 2003 : Principe cinema, San Sebastian, Spain : press show - San Sebastian Film Festival] expansion (for Tribune magazine) of original review written October 2003 INHERITANCE : [7/10] : Arven : Denmark (Den/Swe/Nor/UK) 2003 : Per FLY : 115 mins |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
