In a better world

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Movie
German title In a better world
Original title Hævnen
Country of production Denmark
original language Danish
Publishing year 2010
length 113 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Susanne beer
script Thomas Jensen is different
production Sisse Graum Jørgensen
music Johan Söderqvist
camera Morten Søborg
cut Pernille Bech Christensen
Morten Egholm
occupation

In a Better World (Original title: Hævnen ('Die Rache')) is an Oscar-winning Danish film drama by the director Susanne Bier from 2010.

action

The central character of the film is the Swedish doctor Anton, who works in a Sudanese refugee camp and is very popular with the children there. He maintains contact via Skype with his twelve-year-old son Elias, who is bullied at school and referred to as a “rat face”. Anton lives separately from Marianne, the son's mother. He regrets that when he realizes on a home vacation how much Elias is suffering from it. Elias finds a friend in Christian, who moved in from London with his recently widowed father. He also has a problem and is closed and aggressive with his father. As later becomes apparent to the audience and also to the father, he considers him a liar because he kept telling Christian that his mother would survive her cancer, and he believes that his father is only hypocritical of grief after her death because he is in the end wanted the mother to die . When Christian watches the leader of the bullying clique follow Elias into the school toilet, he assaults the boy, beats him up with the bicycle pump and, with a knife held to his throat, presses the promise to leave Elias alone. Christian and Elias denied to the police that a knife was used. Christian gives the knife to Elias as a symbol of their friendship.

Elias has a little brother who is arguing with another boy in a playground. Anton separates the two of them, but is then attacked and slapped by Lars, the other boy's father, because he has touched his child. Elias and Christian can't understand that Anton put up with that. So Anton and the children go to see Lars and confront him, but receive slaps again. Anton tries to make it clear to the boy that Lars is the moral loser of this argument. Above all, Christian cannot accept that, whose hatred of his own father finds a suitable substitute object in Lars. When he finds old fireworks in his grandfather's workshop, he plans, in revenge , to build a bomb with Elias and to blow up Lars' car. This brings Elias into such a serious moral conflict that the friendship with Christian almost breaks. Only when his attempt to find help from his father, who is back in Darfur fails, does he decide to join in. His concerns about not endangering people seem to have been dispelled because no one was on the street early on Sunday morning.

Anton has to save the lives of young women several times who were pregnant and whom Big Man , a sadistic warlord , cut the child out of their bodies. When this monster with a severe leg wound that is already teeming with maggots needs his help, Anton first of all expels all the gunmen and cars from the camp. Then he treats Big Man's wound , although his staff refuse to help. When the wounded man was able to walk on crutches again, he offered Anton his friendship, but made cynical comments about a young patient who had just died. Then Anton chases him out of the camp and does not intervene when he notices that Big Man is lynched by angry victims .

Christian places his bomb under Lars' van as planned and detonates the fuse. But when Elias notices two joggers, he leaves cover to warn them and is seriously injured by the powerful explosion. The police are investigating Christian, but ultimately classify the case as vandalism when they cannot find anyone behind it. Christian wants to visit Elias in the hospital, but is angrily rejected by Elias' mother Marianne as a spoiled boy and psychopathic murderer. Christian then thinks Elias is dead and decides to put an end to his life. He climbs onto the high silo that he has climbed several times with Elias. When Anton learns that Christian is missing, he suspects where the boy is because Elias had mentioned the trips to the silo to him. He can save Christian from suicide and make it clear that Elias is alive and will get well again. Now he can also talk to him about his mother's death in a way that dissolves Christian internally and enables him to let his father hug him.

criticism

source rating
Rotten tomatoes
critic
audience
Metacritic
critic
audience
IMDb

The film received mostly positive reviews. The Rotten Tomatoes website counted 86 positive reviews of 111 professional reviews, which corresponds to a value of 77%. 86% of 4,784 users rated the film positively from the general public. On IMDb , 35,996 users gave the film an average of 7.6 out of 10 possible points. (As of December 7, 2018)

“A multi-layered drama, which is carried through its finely drawn personal tragedies and a flawless performance. (Dramaet he opbygget i flere lag - båret af fint tegnede personal tragedier og pletfrie præstationer.) "

- kpn.dk (August 26, 2010)

“The film is a study of the dramatic relationships between the characters and their different reactions to loss and abuse. ('Hævnen' er et studie i disse indbyrdes dramatisk forbundne figurers forskellige reactioners on tab and overgreb.) "

- ibyen on politiken.dk (February 15, 2016)

“ In a better world, narrative is sometimes very demanding, but at such a high level that it can be a delight for cineastes. And of course beer also knows how to handle the images, which gives the film sensual and at times poetic traits. "

- moviemaze.de

“Exciting melodrama, behind which a refined discursive experimental arrangement reveals itself on the subject of revenge, which weighs the arguments in a series of intensifying scenes. Well played, the film updates a basic ethical conflict in a stirring way. "

- Lexicon of international film

Awards (selection)

publication

The film opened in Denmark on August 26, 2010 and earned, on a budget of 5.4 million US dollars, worldwide revenues of 9.6 million US dollars, of which 4.9 million US dollars in Denmark. After the German theatrical release on March 17, 2011, the DVD was released on September 2, 2011 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for In a Better World . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , February 2011 (PDF; test number: 126 382 K).
  2. ↑ a b horse at Rotten Tomatoes , accessed October 5, 2014
  3. ↑ a b [1] at Metacritic , accessed on October 6, 2014
  4. ↑ In a better world in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  5. ↑ In A Better World. rottentomatoes.com, accessed July 22, 2011 .
  6. ↑ In a Better World at boxofficemojo.com (English), accessed October 9, 2011