Reconstruction (film)

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Movie
German title Reconstruction
Original title Reconstruction
Country of production Denmark
original language Danish , Swedish
Publishing year 2003
length 84 minutes
Rod
Director Christoffer Boe
script Christoffer Boe,
Mogens Rukov
production Tine Grew Pfeiffer
music Thomas Knak
camera Manuel Alberto Claro
cut Peter Brandt ,
Mikkel EG Nielsen
occupation

Reconstruction is a Danish Film Noir - drama from the year of 2003.

action

The story begins with the writer August introducing the story with the following themes:

The man - the smile - the woman - the love

Alex goes into a bar and meets Aimee, whom he approaches and who is taken with him. Both flirt intensely and later end up in her room, where they sleep together.

Aimee and August arrive a little later at a hotel again and take a room. But since August is on a reading tour , he still has a few business appointments with his assistant Monica, so he leaves his wife alone. Aimee doesn't want to be alone and leaves the hotel to go for a walk in the city. At the same time, Alex walks through the street with his best friend Leo and admits that his relationship with Simone is too much for him. Even later, when eating together with Simone and his father, everything is too much for him, so that he apologizes and walks through town on his own.

Both Alex and Aimee then meet by chance at the train station, where Alex only has eyes for Aimee, follows her into the train and tries to speak to her. Simone joins them and clings to Alex, but he just wants to get away from her and be with Aimee. When she then leaves the train again, he sprints after her and follows her to the café, where he speaks to her again. The entire conversation looks like the opening scene, except that this time both are more familiar, so that they end up in Aimee's hotel room faster and both spend another night of love together.

After August returns to Aimee's hotel, he discovers the traces of this wild night of love and the message that Aimee should meet her lover at 1 p.m. August is stunned, leaves the hotel and has to cope with this first, but he pretends to be clueless to his wife and offers her to cancel all of his readings and only be there for her.

Meanwhile, Alex tries to return home, but his old life no longer seems to exist, because neither his apartment is where it once was, nor can his neighbor Mrs. Banum, his best friend Leo, his girlfriend Simone or his father remember him and think he is a weirdo they aggressively reject. So he runs to “Le Sommelier” to meet Aimee, where they re-enact a love affair. After they've hit the bill, they spend a carefree time in the park and Aimee gives Alex her ring, with which she wants to show that they will definitely see each other again - as promised in Rome - but first she just has to say goodbye to someone .

August knows about the possible separation from Aimee, so he tries one last time to stop her by showing his love for her in a dedication of the book. But Aimee has long since finished with him, packs her things and leaves him. She goes to the agreed bar and then waits for Alex. However, after realizing that his girlfriend loved him dearly, he went to Simone in the “Bo-Bi Bar” to say goodbye to her for good. But Alex finds this interesting, so she doesn't want to let him go and he shows up late at Aimee's bar. But she has long since left and Alex has to try to catch up with her in time. And she is deeply disappointed that Alex abandoned her so that she demands one last proof of her love from him. He should go with her to the train station and not turn around to look at her. If he doubts that she will follow him, she will go away. And shortly before the common goal, Alex doubts whether Aimee followed him, so he turns around and she immediately disappeared.

Alex then quickly goes to the hotel to convince Aimee for a future together in Rome, but she says that she cannot remember him and that he should go away. And so August closes the film as the narrator with the words:

The woman is gone - the smile is gone - but the man is still here - lonely

criticism

The film received very good reviews. The Rotten Tomatoes website counted 28 positive out of 37 professional reviews, which corresponds to a value of 76%. The film was also extremely well received by the general public, as 86% of 4,845 users rated the film positively. This in turn is confirmed by the online film archive IMDb , another platform on which normal users can submit their film reviews, because there 4,146 users gave the film an average of very good 7.2 out of 10 possible points. (As of August 5, 2011)

In the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , Thomas Borchert said that Reconstruction was an "original cinematic implementation of courage and cheek". Boe wanted to "seduce the audience with pictures instead of a story [...]". However, you have to like the visual language, because only then can you experience a “sophisticated film with intense and intimate image sequences”.

In the Taz , Andreas Busche criticized that Reconstruction was merely a “diffuse New Age love mysticism” that was worse than similar films like Memento , Virtual Nightmare - Open Your Eyes and Forget Mine Not! . On the other hand, just a few weeks later, in the same magazine, Wilfried Hippen praised Reconstruction as “a tricky confusion, an experimental arrangement of love that sometimes threatens to be too obsessed with its own sophistication”.

The renowned film critic from the New York Times , AO Scott, praised the choice of location because of the architecture of Copenhagen and found that the "smooth and convincing film [...] tries to convince less with intense emotions than with suggestive moods". This romance also seems as if it had “a literary soul that could be attributed to the short stories by Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar ”.

Matthew Leyland said on bbc.co.uk that Reconstruction is "a stylish, complex and challenging film that torments the mind but leaves the emotions untouched". Everything is designed to develop as little feeling as possible for the characters. Leyland also compared the film to the play Orfeo ed Euridice .

Lisa Nelson said in Variety magazine that the film has "borderline banal dialogues" and that the cigarette smoke creates an atmosphere that gives the film an "emotional weight that it doesn't really deserve".

background

  • In order to create a certain visual style, the film was shot only with existing, i.e. not artificially added, light.
  • In addition, Boe shot the film without storyboards or a schedule .
  • In order to symbolize a certain timelessness, modern communication options such as cell phones or the Internet were deliberately avoided.
  • The film was inspired by a photograph by Jacques-Henri Lartigue . For example, Boe saw a picture of a woman in a room with empty bookshelves and knew he wanted to make a film “about a man who wants to come home but can't because his apartment has disappeared. And it had to be a love story ”.

Awards

publication

Reconstruction had its world premiere at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2003 , before it was shown in Danish cinemas on September 26, 2003, following further screenings at film festivals. In Germany, the film was shown in cinemas on June 10, 2004 and has been available on DVD since November 11, 2004.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Reconstruction. rottentomatoes.com, accessed August 5, 2011 .
  2. Thomas Borchert: "Reconstruction" on mz-web.de from June 7, 2004, accessed on August 5, 2011
  3. Andreas Busche: daumenkino “Reconstruction” on taz.de from June 15, 2004, accessed on August 5, 2011
  4. Wilfried Hippen: A thought game of love: "Reconstruction" by Christoffer Boe on taz.de from July 8, 2004, accessed on August 5, 2011
  5. ^ AO Scott: Following the Heart on a Path That Leads to an Alien Life on nytimes.com, September 10, 2004, accessed on August 5
  6. Matthew Leyland: Reconstruction (2004) on bbc.co.uk of November 3, 2004 (English), accessed August 5, 2011
  7. Lisa Nesselson: Reconstruction  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from variety.com on May 20, 2003, accessed August 5, 2011@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.variety.com  
  8. a b Darroch Greer: Fade to Black: Christoffer Boe on digitalcontentproducer.com from September 1, 2004 (English), accessed on August 5, 2011
  9. a b Liza Bear: Christopher Boe on Love and Personal Identity in “Reconstruction” on indiewire.com, September 10, 2004, accessed August 5, 2011
  10. Golden Palm for "Elephant" on Spiegel Online from May 25, 2003, accessed on August 5, 2011