En Kongelig Affære/A royal affair - Reviews - Magazines & Newspaper

Toronto #5: Loopers and the looped

By Roger Ebert on September 11, 2012 9:46 PM

"A Royal Affair" is a first-rate historical drama based on a romance that changed history. In Denmark, circa 1800, a fragrant young virgin named Caroline Mathilde (Alicia Vikander) is selected to marry the feckless King Christian VII (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard), an idiotic spoiled brat who values his cute little dog above all else. The kingdom is effectively ruled by a council, mostly concerned with using Christian VII to feather their own nests and continue their policies of exploiting the working classes. Sone royals exiled from his circle make a tour and meet a young German doctor named Johann Struensee (played by Mads Mikkelsen, an actor who seems destined to become the next international star from Europe.). They introduce him to the King in hopes of ingratiating themselves

Johann is an intellectual, a follower of Voltaire, a social reformer. Caroline is very smart, uneducated, left physically cold by her goofy husband. The king reserves more affection for his doggie, and is regarded by his cabinet as a moronic but useful puppet. Nevertheless, Caroline is in fact the queen and wields great power, and under the subtle and crafty tutelage of the two of them, the King begins to declare various social reforms, to the horror of his puppet-masters. What's this? Will the backward Denmark join the rest of Europe in joining the Enlightenment?

This is the first feature written and directed by Nikolaj Arcel, who earlier wrote "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." His sense of period is accurate, his locations and costumes persuasive, and the plot slides easily from comedy into serious drama. It is a dangerous matter to steal not only a king's wife, but his prerogatives. As the king, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard portrays a man who may be a fool, but has an engaging innocence. The film opens on Nov. 9.

History Spawns Peak Films at Telluride Festival

By JOE MORGENSTERN, September 6, 2012, 6:03 p.m. ET

Affleck thrills with Iran-set 'Argo,' Chilean drama 'No' rates a big yes, Dane reigns in 'Royal Affair'

Telluride, Colo.

Being out in the world took on new meaning at the 39th Telluride Film Festival. All of the natural attractions were in place—the perfumed breeze, the azure sky, the scudding clouds, the Rocky Mountains as backdrop to a whirl of urban sophisticates done up as alpine rustics. Still, watching many of this year's films meant being out in the larger world of political strife, seething violence and history's tumult.

In some cases, the chosen mode was entertainment. "Argo," a terrific Hollywood thriller directed by and starring Ben Affleck, takes place during the Iran hostage crisis that began in the fall of 1979; it's just the kind of smart, accomplished film the studios should be making, and seldom do. In "No," Pablo Larraín's sensational fact-based political drama from Chile, Gael García Bernal plays an outwardly callow ad executive who's determined to drive the Pinochet dictatorship from office. (His genial insight, which the movie explores with a playful sense of paradox, is that democracy can be packaged like any other consumer product.) "Hyde Park on Hudson" has Bill Murray as a buoyant FDR on the eve of World War II, and Laura Linney as one of the women who loves him.

In the festival's most powerful film, "The Gatekeepers," the mode was polemic, and the mood was somber. Dror Moreh's feature-length documentary turns on extended interviews with all six former directors of the Shin Bet, Israel's feared and traditionally secretive internal-security service. None of them seems burdened by a bleeding heart; some have unsavory chapters in their careers. But they are, to a man, manifestly intelligent and exceptionally articulate. They are also formidably persuasive, as well they might be, having presided over half a century of efforts to protect their nation from its all too proximate enemies.

The retired directors acknowledge some of the Shin Bet's egregious lapses—the "Bus 300" affair, in which agents executed two terrorist hijackers without a trial, and the agency's failure to prevent the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, which effectively marked the death of the nascent peace movement. They note such successes as a reduction in terrorist activity that resulted, one of them contends, from cooperation with Palestinian authorities who were acting in their own self-interest. Surveying the current situation, they insist on the necessity of negotiating with one's enemies, and speak with unanimous scorn of their nation's political leadership: "I don't take politicians seriously any more," another says. Looking to the future, they see nothing but danger and decline unless Israel's leaders replace expedient tactics with strategic vision. A polemic, to be sure, but delivered by polemicists whose religion has been unblinking realism.

If "The Gatekeepers" paints a bleak picture of the Middle East, "The Act of Killing" portrays the darkest side of human nature. There are no good guys in Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary, only squalid gangsters and paramilitary thugs who killed on behalf of the military dictatorship that ruled Indonesia for three decades. The film is much too long, thereby squandering the force of its dramatic device, which invites the killers to play their former selves in recapitulations of their loathsome deeds for a fiction film. (It's eerie to behold the similarity between their simulated rage and the real, murderous thing.) All the same, "The Act of Killing" is valuable for what its interviews reveal about the sort of stone killers who seem to be in ever more abundant supply.

These vile guys know right from wrong, but drive the distinction to pragmatic conclusions. ("Killing is the worst crime you can do, so the key is not feeling guilty.") The most notorious of the lot, a trim and genial old gent called Anwar Congo, confesses to suffering nightmares about a victim he once beheaded. Yet there's no suggestion that the dead man as a whole is on the killer's mind; what bothers him is that he should have shut the eyes on the severed head. And there's no relief from the cheerful tone of Anwar's recollections. A case study in the banality of evil, he's also a poster monster for evil's joviality.

Most of my dispatches from Telluride have followed the same pattern in recent years—the summer releases from the studios have been dispiriting, the festival has rekindled my spirits and here are some of the films that did the rekindling. In point of fact, this year's summer films were especially atrocious—with deservedly dismal revenues to match—while this year's festival has been exceptionally good at reminding festivalgoers of how much they've been missing in international fare. And despite the two examples cited above, plenty of films from other countries were a pleasure to watch.

In "The Sapphires," an Australian debut feature directed by Wayne Blair, three aboriginal sisters plus a cousin who'd rather be white take their Supremes-ly exuberant Motown songs to U.S. troops during the Vietnam War. Though the production is unpolished, the music is great and Chris O'Dowd is delightfully droll as the group's boozy manager.

The pleasures of "Barbara" flow from an urgency and complexity that are concealed, though only for a while, by Christian Petzold's spare style. Set in East Germany in 1980, this German-language drama stars Nina Hoss in the title role of a physician who, after her banishment to a small-town clinic, is as icy toward her colleagues as she is caring and compassionate toward her patients. Ronald Zehrfeld is André, another doctor and fellow exile with a rich soul and a secret life no less dangerous than Barbara's, which involves a handsome lover from the West. Given the setting, and the pervasive paranoia, "Barbara" will inevitably be compared to "The Lives of Others." It isn't the equal of that masterpiece, but it's impressive and absorbing in its own right, an urbane thriller that plays out in a suffocating little sinkhole of a rotting Communist state, and draws suspense from the question, among others, of whether Barbara will choose the right man.

Mads Mikkelsen, the Danish actor who was such a vivid presence in Susanne Bier's "After the Wedding," gives a marvelous performance in "A Royal Affair." He is Johann Struensee, a German physician at court in Copenhagen. Nicolaj Arcel's period piece, which is superbly entertaining and sumptuously produced, combines seminal Danish history with juicy scandal. Late in the 18th Century, when Denmark was in desperate need of progressive ideas, the freethinking Struensee won the trust of the nation's tormented, infantile king (a performance of complementary virtuosity by Mikkel Boe Følsgaard); seduced the passionate Queen Caroline Matilda (Alicia Vikander); and tried to seize power in order to bring Enlightenment ideas to the impoverished nation. Although the periods of "A Royal Affair" and "No" are separated by two centuries, both films are about contests for a nation's future. In this one the contestants invoke Voltaire on the streets and murmur sweet nothings in bed.

It's always fascinating to discover what can make us happy, both as moviegoers and citizens of the world. "Wadjda" does the trick, even though it's a bit wobbly, as first features sometimes are. Haifaa Al Mansour's film represents two other firsts—the first feature to be shot in its entirety in Saudi Arabia, and, more remarkably, the first Saudi feature to be directed by a woman.

Like some of her colleagues in Iran, the filmmaker uses an ostensibly simple story to address crucial issues. The spunky heroine of the title is 11 years old and wants to buy a bicycle in order to race Abdullah, a young boy in the neighborhood. Lest you think this a variation on the theme of "Pee-wee's Big Adventure," the story operates at the nexus of gender politics and cultural repression, since Saudi girls aren't allowed to ride bikes, any more than Saudi women are allowed to drive cars. "I Am a Great Catch" proclaims a T-shirt that Wadjda wears in the privacy of her home. For all its imperfections, the movie is a great catch too, funny and touching in equal measure.

Of the 15 features I managed to see over the long Labor Day weekend, two other films made strong impressions. "The Central Park Five" is a harrowing piece of investigative work by Sarah Burns, her father, Ken Burns, and David McMahon. Their documentary examines the notorious case of five teenage boys from Harlem who were sent to prison for the 1989 assault and rape of a white middle-class woman in Central Park, a crime to which a known serial rapist confessed many years later. And at the opposite end of the seriousness scale, "Hands Up!," a silent comedy from 1926, showcased the all-but-forgotten talents of Raymond Griffith, although, in fairness, it also reminded us why both Chaplin and Keaton were beyond compare.

In fairness to the many passholders who complained of long lines and sold-out screenings, this year's event was not problem-free. The transition to digital projection caused technical glitches, while the festival's egalitarian principles were severely stressed by a plethora of platinum, go-to-the-head-of-the-line patron passes. Still, Telluride puts on a show unlike any other, and I've got to believe that the festival will solve its problems before next year's edition rolls around. At an altitude of almost 9,000 feet, the stakes are too high to do anything less.

A version of this article appeared September 7, 2012, on page D9 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: History Spawns Peak Films at Telluride Festival.

Trailer For A Royal Affair Tears A Nation In Half

published: 2012-08-09 08:51:03 Author: Sean O'Connell

Not to stereotype or anything, but royals often are brought down by scandals stemming from affairs of the heart. So goes the case of the aptly titled A Royal Affair, director Nikolaj Arcel’s account of a Danish love affair that ripped a nation in half during the late 1760s. Affair has a stellar cast, which we’ll dive into after sharing the first official trailer:

Magnolia Pictures will distribute this period drama, which boasts sumptuous historical design and what look to be riveting performances by the three leads. Arcel’s story is a simple love triangle between an insane king (Mikkel Boe Folsgaard), his trusted physician (Mads Mikkelsen), and the queen (Alicia Vikander) who wins both of their hearts. But Royal Affair is based on the all-too-true story of the doomed doctor Count Johann Friedrich Struensee (Mikkelsen’s character), who possibly impregnated Queen Carolina Matilda, bringing shame to Denmark’s throne.

Though Arcel has directed a few titles over the course of his career – notably Truth About Men and 2007’s Island of Lost Souls -- he’s best known for co-writing the screenplay for the original, Swedish The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for director Niels Arden Oplev. He looks to bring a steady hand to the scandalous Royal Affair, and adding Mikkelsen to any ensemble always helps.

Those who track the annual Oscar race will note that A Royal Affair picked up two key awards at the Berlin Film Festival: Best Actor (for Mikkelsen) and Best Screenplay. It also was nominated for the Golden Berlin Bear. Is it awards-worthy? Find out for yourself when it begins screening in U.S. theaters on Nov. 9.