Niels Arden Oplev had a
hit on his hands with the first adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium”
trilogy – The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Now, he is safely away in Hollywood,
with a Colin Farrell thriller (Dead Man Down) that seems to have disappeared
without much attention. Was he an interesting voice in Danish, or Swedish,
cinema who has now taken the path of blockbuster anonymity or was he always
destined to go Hollywood? Drakes Avenue has chosen to unearth some of Oplev’s
back catalogue so that we can see for ourselves.
We
Shall Overcome follows the coming of age of the thirteen-year old Frits (Janus
Dissing Rathke) during the summer of 1969. Deprived of a father (Jens Jørn
Spottag) due to a sudden nervous breakdown, Frits finds a temporary but
inspirational replacement in Martin Luther King, introduced to him through the
family’s brand new television. At school, Frits becomes the victim of the
increasingly tyrannical school principal Lindum-Svendsen (Bent Mejding) and
falls under the wing of a hip new teacher Mr. Svale (Anders W Berthelsen). As
life at school becomes more and more difficult, Frits begins to rebel…
Arial;">One can be forgiven for
thinking that this is going to happen. The film frequently referencing real
protests – from the African-American civil rights movement to Danish students
opposing the Vietnam war, both shown to be violently suppressed by harsh
authority figures. There are several references to slavery in Denmark with one
class on Peter von Scholten’s emancipation of Denmark’s slaves in the West
Indies providing the background for a telling close-up on Frits. This
simplistic parallel is nicely subverted when Frits claims that the history
teacher is wrong and that the slaves were freed for less compassionate reasons.
Later, during a nationalistic display for their parents, the pupils will
silently and rather ominously approach Lindum-Svendsen en masse only for
nothing to happen. Instead, they recite the song “We Shall Overcome” as
unexcitedly as they did the religious hymns previously. It is unclear whether
Oplev intends to suggest that their newfound rebellious spirit is the result of
just another indoctrination, but it is a strange moment. It has a parallel too,
in a sequence in which Frits, finding out that they have been successful in
launching an inquiry into Lindum-Svendsen’s behaviour, runs across the fields
jumping and dancing in celebration.
Janus
Dissing Rathke throws himself around gamely, but it is a deflated moment, far
from the obvious Billy Elliot antecedent (compare the DVD covers). One gets the
impression that Frits is playing at being an adult and that he does not fully
understand what is going on around him. His celebration is totally exaggerated,
considering how little has really been achieved, and seems to be an act, like a
child celebrating more to mimic their parents’ jubilation than because of any
genuine sense of personal achievement.
As befits a coming of
age story, Frits will lose his role models – Mr Svale loses his halo in a
surprising but totally inconsistent plot mechanism – and has to succeed thanks
to his own strength. However, the film finishes on a strange note of
non-victory, far from the rebellion that most of the audience would surely have
been waiting for. Though this is a much more realistic and sober conclusion, it
nonetheless feels like a cop-out, as if the film wasn’t brave enough to stray
too far from what was safe, conservative and family-friendly. This is less a
surprise than a disappointment since the film that precedes this ending was
almost resolutely conventional and by the numbers.
We Shall Overcome feels like an assignment, a
coming-of-age film made by people who don’t have any particular affection for
their own schooling or youthful dabbling in outsider politics or lifestyles
but, instead, an interest in a packaged, marketable film with a happy ending
and a Billy Elliot poster. Niels Arden Oplev has now safely absconded to
Hollywood where, it seems, he was destined to go. Danish cinema, which, under
Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, has often been fearlessly confrontational
and experimental, hasn’t lost a major voice.
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