05 April, 2011

WI Film Festival 2011: A Somewhat Gentle Man





One thing I like about Nordic comedies is how they nudge some Verfremdungseffekt at the audience by having so many characters with deadpan deliveries that we are forced to wonder if Scandinavians are really so inscrutable. So it goes with A Somewhat Gentle Man, Hans Petter Moland's dark comedy starring Stellan Skarsgård on whom I have a man-crush.

Skarsgård plays Ulrik who is being released from prison on an overcast day as the movie opens. In addition to a bottle of booze, the guard gives him some advice: don't look back. But he can't help himself and begins to reintroduce himself to the folks that populated his life before he ended up in the slammer. Foremost among them is Jensen, a mob boss who is never without his hapless sidekick Rolf. Ulrik is indebted to Jensen and the debt is extended as he finds Ulrik a room to bunk in and a job lead at an auto repair shop. Together they seek out the guy who ratted on Ulrik and landed him in prison.

This may sound all serious but it's far from it. Skarsgård is almost emotionless through much of the film with a blank expression and his tendency to answer questions with a simple "Okay." But he ends up being quite the ladies man. A visit to his ex-wife begins with him being chewed out and told that she has reared their son to forget his father but it ends with her offering him a quickie anyway. Back at his one room basement estate Ulrik's crotchety old landlady brings him a TV and then gets in the habit of cooking him dinner. Soon she demands a little something in return. These scenes are as funny as they are rote with Ulrik still chewing his food as he mounts her for sex that is best described as clinical, the woman's loud cries of ecstasy not withstanding.

When he's not out looking for the guy responsible for landing him in jail, Ulrik attempts to establish some kind of relationship with his son who is married and soon to be a father himself. While the son is open to the possibility, his wife is not keen on her child having an ex-con for a grandfather. Ulrik finds some solace in Merete, the woman who does the books at the shop. Initially she keeps her distance after hearing that Ulrik was fresh out of jail and says that people can't change but she comes around. In one scene they go dancing together and to say that he has two left feet is a dramatic understatement. But fate eventually offers Ulrik a chance to redeem himself when an attempt to talk with his son ends up with him driving his daughter-in-law to the hospital after her water breaks.

While Ulrik has arguably found redemption by the time the credits roll, I also felt that half of the pleasure of the film was watching this vaguely Fellinieque troupe of Oslovians do their thing. When we first meet Jensen, a woman backs her car into his repeatedly which causes the big bad mobster to finally pick her up and throw her into a dumpster. There's the owner of the shop who has a severe case of logorrhea and delivers stern lectures that go on for about 4 sentences too long. And to make the Fellini comparison complete, we have the gun dealer's crony who is a dwarf/midget/little person.

Despite his nearly expressionless visage and the dull, grey setting courtesy of cinematographer Philip Øgaard, you know there's a lot happening inside of Ulrik. The pleasure is in watching Skarsgård tease the turmoil out of his character slowly but surely.

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