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Reviews
Francesco, giullare di Dio (1950)
Not one for your average film-goer
I watched this recently on DVD and nodded off before the end. I have no doubt the artistically-minded will be up in arms but to be honest this is not really a film. A film should provide at least a semblance of entertainment, whether in action, photography, dialogue or story. The cast seems to be assembled from actual monks & country peasants but the naturalistic approach produces a result that looks entirely unnatural, with all the characters looking desperate to get their designated line into the dialogue. I was disappointed to waste part of my evening on this - heaven alone knows what a paying cinema audience would have made of it!
Pelle erobreren (1987)
Worth missing Big Brother for.
A slightly bum-numbing 2 1/2 hours but a fine film nevertheless. The scene where Pelle cries in disbelief as his father loses his final shred of dignity in yielding to the Trainee (after promising to whip him) is excellent.
I wasn't going to say anymore but the IMDb guidelines insist that all comments need to be at least 10 lines long. So I'll go on to say that this was the first Danish Film I have seen and am therefore unable to compare it to others (unless "Hans Christian Anderssen" counts). I have, however, been watching a number of foreign films lately as the Independent newspaper has been giving away DVDs. As foreign language films go it's better than Norwegian (Closely Observed Trains), better than Italian (Francis, God's Jester) but still someway behind French (The Return of Martin Guerre).