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Moriarty’s One Thing I Love Today! ADAM’S APPLES And Film Movement!
Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here.
Wait... technically speaking, that’s two things.
Damn it, it’s only day two and I’m already messing it up. Still, these two things are related, so please don’t anyone call the internet cops on me. One is a movie, and the other is... well, not exactly a distributor... it’s more like a concept. And it’s a concept I like a lot.
If you know the name “Anders Thomas Jensen,” then I suspect you already understand the appeal of his work. He is a merciless documenter of our weakest natures, our faults, our foibles. He is a writer of prodigious talent and energy. He’s got several truly great screenplays under his belt already, and he’s sort of ground zero for an entire movement in contemporary Danish cinema.
And -- sigh – he’s younger than I am.
He started working professionally while he was still in high school, and he worked in short films for a while, winning an Academy Award for one of them. The first of his films that I saw was MIFUNE. That was 1999. The year many of the most interesting guys in film right now started breaking through. He co-wrote the film, a strong, strange, personal movie that had a dark comic voice that almost felt intrusive. It was one of the early Dogme 95 films, and that’s actually the only reason I checked it out. I was impressed, but in a year that great, it was a minor work. Promising. Interesting. Forgotten by most. It was the following year that I saw IN CHINA THEY EAT DOGS, which was (for me) a huge, major, ballbusting announcement for director Lasse Spang Olsen, star Kim Bodina, and Jensen as a writer. Ferocious. Hilarious. For all of you who inexplicably worship the miserable BOONDOCK SAINTS, check this film out to see that sort of mayhem done just right.
In 2002, he reunited with Olsen and Bodina for OLD MEN IN NEW CARS, a prequel that just as rich and funny and insane. I’m not crazy about THE KING IS ALIVE, which he worked on, and I like but don’t love OPEN HEARTS, which he wrote. WILBUR WANTS TO KILL HIMSELF is a great script, and as a writer/director, he made the twisted THE GREEN BUTCHERS, a dark ride worth taking, shot through with that same sort of blistering perception of how people behave. He’s a keen observer of little details, and with ADAM’S APPLES, he’s once again the writer/director. The film was made in 2005, but just recently made it to release in the US on DVD, thanks to Film Movement.
More on that below. First, the film. ADAM’S APPLES is a riff on the Book of Job, and as such, I think it’s fiendishly clever. I am personally fascinated by the Book of Job. I think it’s one of the most disturbing things in all of literature, a pure horror story. The notion of a good and just man who has his family killed and his land scorched and his possessions destroyed simply as a test of a bored and curious God is terrifying. As existential a horror story as I can imagine. The notion of loving God with your whole heart, genuinely and with proper worship, and still somehow catching this bullet that is the result of a passing schoolyard bully taunt from the Devil? Awful. Terrifying. Job got screwed. That’s the moral of the story. Randomly screwed. The thumb of God came down on him, love rewarded with glancing malice. I think it’s potent material to use as a thematic source for a film, and Jensen rises to the challenge with his typical wit and skill. Here, he casts Ivan as his Job, played by James Bond villain Mads Mikkelsen. If your only exposure to Mikkelsen is CASINO ROYALE, in a way I envy you. Because you will get your face melted off if you rent ADAM’S APPLES by how good this guy is. This character he brings to life is a tricky tightrope act as written, and Mikkelsen throws himself into it completely. From the moment he appears onscreen, he’s communicating a lifetime of horror somehow repressed into a perpetually perky hippie priest, his pain locked tight behind a constant sunny disposition.
Put simply, he’s a freakshow. A great big twitchy freakshow, and especially when set next to the stone-faced fury of Ulrich Thomsen (particularly good in BROTHERS a few years back) as Adam, a neo-Nazi who has just been released from prison when the film begins.
I love the simplicity with which the film unfolds. You see Adam being dropped off. He’s waiting for someone to pick him up. Ivan shows up. He runs a halfway house and he’s supposed to pick Adam up. Ivan’s so perky right from the start that Adam wants to smash his face in. And does. And Ivan turns the other cheek.
That’s pretty much the film. Adam is repulsed by Ivan and his attitude. Adam is the real deal, a Hitler-loving criminal scumbag who has no intention of reforming or being corrected. Ivan runs his halfway house in a purely experimental manner, treating each person who lives there totally different. He gives each of them one task that they have to accomplish while they live there, and that one task can take six months or six weeks or really any amount of time. The point is picking something and finishing it. In Adam’s case, he notices an apple tree in the yard of the house on his way in, and he says he’ll back a pie with the apples when they’re ripe. That’s his project. Ivan loves that idea, telling Adam that his job is to take care of the tree and grow the apples until they’re ripe, and then back the pie, and that whole process is his one task.
Adam’s real task, however, is breaking Ivan. He’s determined he’s going to break this smile, this good spirit. The more he studies Ivan to figure out how to break him, the more he realizes that someone is already trying to do so: God. Ivan is cursed, a man who has had more major traumas in his life than seems possible. Ivan does nothing but good, working tirelessly (if eccentrically) to help the men in his care and his community. And he’s repaid with pain after pain after pain. And he just shakes it off. Keeps moving. Keeps positive. In an almost psychotic manner. Adam realizes that if he can take Ivan’s faith away, he’ll break him as a man, never realizing that his efforts might somehow make him a believer in a higher power.
And it’s funny. Really. Not funny like MEET-THE-SPARTANS-Gallagher-pooping-your-pants funny, so maybe this isn’t a film I’d recommend to everyone, but funny like gasp-in-horror-can’t-look-away-cringe-in-sympathetic-terror funny. Mikkelsen and Thomsen go toe-to-toe for most of the movie, and they’re both fantastic in the film. Jensen has a great eye as a director, and he creates a reality here that is heightened but completely believable.
So thanks, Film Movement, for making this one of your monthly selections, and in return, let’s talk about the way your program works. You can look at their website and get detailed information about their various rates, but the short version is they’re a DVD distributor that offers a subscription service, a DVD club of sorts. Imagine if you just paid Criterion something like $35 a month and said, “Send me everything you put out.” And because you subscribed, you got a huge discount, so every disc was actually a lot less than if you picked them out and bought them individually. Imagine if you could do that with 20th Century Fox or Paramount. That’s sort of what it’s like when a studio puts you on a reviewers list. You’re being barraged with an assortment of material, not all of which is aimed at you. But some of it definitely will be. And I’m willing to bet that at some point in the future, that’s exactly how some people will consume media... they’ll pay individual studios each month a subscription fee that will give them full access to a digital library. It’s inevitable, and it’s exciting to contemplate.
Right now, at this moment, Film Movement works on a fairly small scale. They don’t flood you with new material; it’s one title a month. You subscribe for a year or for six months or whatever, and during that time, they just send you each month’s title. The two titles they sent me were ADAM’S APPLES and DREAMS OF DUST, films 9 and 10 from last year. DREAMS OF DUST was beautiful and sad and really strong overall, but ADAM’S APPLES knocked me flat. If this programming team can deliver films of this quality month in and month out, then it totally seems worth it to me to subscribe. I wouldn’t have picked up DREAMS OF DUST on my own, but I’m truly glad I saw it... and I’m sure I would have eventually tracked down ADAM’S APPLES, but not many people would have. With a service like this, you’re asking someone to challenge you 12 times a year with things that might otherwise go unseen altogether. I like that idea a lot. And if you want to know who Film Movement uses to make the decisions... if you want to know who these particular arbiters of taste are... The website has a full list of them. Film Society of Lincoln Center, South By Southwest, Ebert’s Overlooked, AFI... this is not a shabby list of resume credits that this group is sporting.
These are people who see more movies than you can imagine each year. Movies that never ever get conventional distribution. These are people in a position to do some real good, and Film Movement seems to me like a genuine step in the right direction.
Check ‘em out. And definitely check out ADAM’S APPLES. And see if you’d be willing to hand over two hours and $15 every month to have someone introduce you to something that you might otherwise go your whole life without seeing.
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
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Greatest movie I saw last year and I'm glad that it found it's way to the USA!
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Mar 18, 2008 7:10:55 AM CDT
Been trying to get this on DVD in the UK for aaaaages...
by sowasred2012
Danish cinema is the shit - everyone needs to check out The Green Butchers, another one with Mads Mikkelsen, it's hilarious and very twisted yet somehow manages to be incredibly sweet.
Also, my Danish buddies have tried to convince me that Terkel In Trouble is comedy gold. That shit is fucked up is what is. -
Mar 18, 2008 7:11:19 AM CDT
Film Movement sounds like a cool little idea
by the gospel according to bastardface
If only we had it here.
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I'm not sure if it's the right way to promote In China they eat dogs than spitting on a fan-favorite movie. You got me interested in it though. I guess that's what's important.
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I never want to be one of those people that comments about age. It's so freaking annoying. Doesn't matter if you are actually jealous of youth or just pretending to be, it's stupid.
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Its available from cdwow:
http://www13.cd-wow.com/detail_results_2.php?product_code=363225&subcat=region2
Also people who dig Adams Apples or the Green Butchers should check out ATJ first full length film as a director Flickering Lights. -
sorry link is broken search for its danish title (its got english subtitles) Adams æbler.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7302841.stm
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Damn 54 was way too young.
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I'll try them, but I've ordered Danish CD's from those guys before and they just never ship so I'm skeptical - don't suppose you've had problems with them?
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For recognising the greatness that is Mads Mikkelsen OUTSIDE of Casino Royale or - for shame! - King Arthur. The guy is a wonderful actor, super-charismatic, and this is another of his classic Danish performances. I had to pick this up on DVD when I was in Copenhagen last year, along with a couple of others that aren't available in the UK! He makes this little lady very happy...yum.
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I saw "Adam's Apple" two years ago at CIFF and "Green Butchers" the year before that at TIFF and quickly imported the DVDs to show friends. The bird shooting scene is one of my favorites. Also he is involved in the project that created "Red Road". He is credited with the character creation. I hope they continue that project. Jensen has a dark sense of humor I've not seen anywhere else.
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Flickering Lights. It's actually my favourite Anders Thomas Jensen film and also stars Mads Mikkelsen and Ulrich Thomsen.
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Mar 18, 2008 11:52:43 AM CDT
Actually, Criterion should start a monthly subscription.
by knuckleduster
I'd sign up in a heartbeat.
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I thought these were going to be short articles. Not that I am complaining, but you know what some people say about Stephen King and his... verbosity? I think you fall into the same boat.
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Do people here actually like Boondock Saints? Jesus, that movie is ass.
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Actually....Job was not randomly screwed. God was bragging on him (at how righteous of a man Job was). Satan said that it was because Job was blessed that he loved God. (That Job only loved God for what God gave him.) When put to the test... it turns out that Job still remained a righteous man.. he didn't curse God. His friends & family kept giving him bad counsel, and he never listened. In the end God rewarded him with MORE that what the Devil took away.
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... yeah, that makes it all okay. "Hey, remember when I killed your wife and your children and burned your land and your cattle? And twisted you will illness? Well... I was just fucking around." HORROR. STORY.
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Leave it to McWeeny to let the point of a story a child could understand sail right over his five-head.
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... to my fan club to have the inability to understand that there may be more than one way to process that story besides the one you're told in church.
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the best way I can describe the company is kind of a criterion for films most in the USA would not have heard of otherwise.
certain hollywood video and movie gallery stores carry these titles when they are released for public sale (usually a couple months after "club" members get them-but that varies i think) if you like this one, try The Bothersome Man (awesome) and Aaltra. (hilarious) -
to "process" a story..unfortunately for you only one is right.
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Mori, THANK YOU! I have been saying the exact same thing about the Book of Job for years! I've never gotten how anyone can look at that story as some kind of uplifting parable about the virtue of loving God unconditionally. You said it brother. HORROR. STORY. Why would anyone want or even be ABLE to love a god who would do that to you. Job is even more mentally disturbed than the most pathetic battered wife. Horrible story.
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Blasphemy! Sacrilege!
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...Which...I don't know...it was a bad movie? The tone was reaaaallly odd...It never really settled into being a comedy or a drama...I've loved Mads Mikkelsen in the Pusher movies and in After The Wedding, and while I didn't like Wilbur overall, I liked parts of it. This film sounds really good, luckily I'll just be able to rent it from my video store or watch in on SBS, cause that record club sorta deal sounds fucking lame.
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Well, It's all about You then. Isn't it.
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Mar 18, 2008 5:21:26 PM CDT
Mori's ego travels in a stretch limo while he takes the bus
by murk the turk
The guy's getting worse and worse. Check out his Narnia "set vsit" - otherwise known as "Mori's Ego's Big Day Out." He actually waffles on about his family and personal life for three pages before he gets to any movie-related info.
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The whole idea that just because God does something means it's righteous seems kind of like bullshit to me. As The_Deathticle implied, imagine it as the story of a man who beats and openly cheats on his wife to prove how faithful she is. Even if he gave her, like, a billion dollars for her trouble, it still isn't a very heartwarming story. Just remember that every blow he lands is just another way of saying, "I love you."
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"Hey, remember when I killed your wife and your children and burned your land and your cattle? And twisted you will illness? " .....Hey man I completely understand where your comming from.... and I wasn't trying to "start" up anything... I was trying to point out that God didn't do those things to Job. Satan did. God is being blamed for what someone else did.... I appologize if my posting came across as hostel. That wasn't the intent. :)
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Per Dogma_Jedi, change my variation of the story to a man permitting someone to beat and rape his wife while he stands idly by, perfectly able to intervene but not doing so, to prove that she'd never turn against him. I'll admit to misunderstanding who it was who inflicted the hardships upon Job, but my absolute bafflement over devout believer's reception of the story continues. Allowing the normal events of nature to occur, whatever. The makers of nature shows do it all the time, and that certainly doesn't make them bad people. Allowing another supernaturally powerful force to fuck around with someone's life to win a bet, that's a pretty dick move.
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of Film Movement. My wife gave me a one year's membership for Christmas. It is fantastic. 1 movie a month is sent to me to keep. Movies I never heard of but are fantastic, for those of you who like arthouse movies. The first movie i watched was "Arranged" about a Jewish woman and a Muslim woman who become friends in NYC and are both being arranged to marry. Really good. I still have to watch "The Violin". The reviews have been through the roof.
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Maybe I didn't dig deep enough into the site, but it looks to me that the service is only available if you have a US mailing address.
Sigh.
And not a "Moriarty is younger than me" sigh, although he is.
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Quote of the fuckin' year.
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Thanks for the recommendation. I just bought "Adam's Apple" on film movement. $12.95 if you're a member. That's fantastic. I look forward to watching it.
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I've just re-read (the first time in 2 years) the Abrams Superman script.. and god damn it, why did you have to be so vocal... that flick would have rocked! Now, I LOVE Singer's Superman Returns, but whether or not you liked that film we can agree that it's not the Superman we were hoping for/expecting.
So back to Abrams draft.. is it the Superman that we all now.. yes and no.. it's definately not the backstory we recognize, but it has all the heart and emotion.. what it also has in rejuvenation.. Abrams Superman would have brought a whole new fanbase to Superman. It would have allowed Superman to live in the hearts of kids for another 60 years.
So what if it wasn't the traditional story... need we forget that originally Superman had no flying abilities.. he had no Lex Luthor.. hell, Superman didn't "learn" of Krypton until the 1940's!!
Sometimes it's good for fan's to a say in the pre-production of films, but should one scathing review have the power to sideline a film.. HELL NO! Re-reading your initial story it's obvious that you were off track..
"SPIDER-MAN and the BLADE films work incredibly well, in my opinion, and DAREDEVIL looks to me like another home run..."
.. and I believe that you were wrong about this version of Superman as well.
So Mori, I love your contributions here on AICN.. but tonight I'm feeling a bit testy (and a bit cheated.. cheated out of what could have been one hell of a Superman flick, not to mention an honest to god jump start to the Superman mythology) so I have one thing to say to you.. FUCK YOU MAN!
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random. ^^^^^^
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And what the fuck does any of this have to do with Adam's Apples?
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yeah.. that WAS random.... Adam's Apples looks great....
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Yes, my message was random.. however, at the time it was the most recent of Mori's articles... so I thought he might see it.
Plus, Superman does fly in Abram's script.. I'm just pointing out that Superman has "evolved" since his first incarnation. -
Seriously, I am an atheist, but if the Old Testament were actually true and not just a collection of fantasy stories, I would tell God to go fuck himself. I'd rather be damned than serve an asshole like that.
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