arf_she_said: (the situation being fluid and all.....)
[personal profile] arf_she_said
So Brotherhood (Brodeskab) you guys, I don't even know where to start with this movie.



I could start with the heartwarming scene where the two attractive white guys bond over the creation of awful, just simply vile racist Neo-Nazi propaganda and proceed to distribute it with the sweet, guitar-accompanied abandon that sees young lovers in other movies frolicking in autumnal drifts.

I could start by comparing it to Brokeback Mountain and Einaym Pkuhot, two other recent, stunningly acted movies about the intense homoeroticism of a repressive, masculinist culture.

Or I could start with David Dencik.



David Dencik in this movie plays a character pretty much tailored specifically for me. His Jimmy has that brand of masculinity that slips seemingly without his control between assertive capability and desperate vulnerability and he is often disarmingly tender (hi, Dean, hi Ennis, hi RayK, &c). Almost purely reactive, ever-watching, he is the perfect caregiver, the perfect second in command. Although we don't have much of an idea of his history or reasons for joining such an overtly despicable group, with his skull naked to the elements and some perpetual mix of worry, self-loathing, panic, despair, passion, and love in his eyes, moment-to-moment Jimmy is a masterpiece of embodied characterisation: his world drops from under him several times in the movie and you experience every second in tandem. I am dying to see more of Dencik; apparently he plays a transwoman in En Soap so I'll be looking for that.

Similarly masterful is the progression of the romance, and Donato pulls off something that most directors can't, namely, conveying the impression that these two characters are constantly, often against their will, thinking of each other. From the first moment they meet, antagonistically, Lars (Thure Lindhardt, also excellent) and Jimmy are aware of each other's presence, an interaction that moves from glares and posturing to ballet recitals of missed glances and careful, self-conscious stepping about the house they're forced to shack up (alone, of course) in. When they're in the same room, if they're not sharing a frame, their eyelines always align, gaze landing and flickering away: they can't look at each other, and they can't not. It's wonderfully done and when they give in to the ~~passion it stops your breath.

That Donato does so spectacularly well with the love story is pretty much the downfall (no pun intended) of this movie. Lars and Jimmy fill every corner of the film and there's not room for much else. As in Brokeback and Einaym Pkuhot it's the men who consciously dedicate themselves to walking a curtailed, self-controlled, rigorous, conformative path who are shattered by a homoerotic encounter in their almost exclusively homosocial, patriarchal, misogynist culture or subculture; it's evident that for those inclined towards the forbidden, ie dudes, such repression leads disastrously and inevitably to an almost exquisite dissolution of the self. This is the goal of all tragic romance, of course: the stakes have to be fucking high.

But the subculture here is a bunch of basically pathetic, racist, homophobic wankers. They take themselves extreeeeeeemly seriously and sign on for life and the Fuhrer etc but there's no real sense of who and why they are in Danish society, how this group becomes so essential to the lives of these (working-class?) men (then again I only have a vague idea of the recent rise of neo-Fascism in Scandinavia). There is no real sense of how their personal conflict challenges the status quo (except in that it must be violently rejected) or Jimmy's adoption of the ideology (Lars is pretty non-committal right from the start). Jimmy's buttsex troubles him because he is not-gay; maybe he comes around to forgiving himself the gay, but how does that fit with being Nazi/not-Nazi?

Jimmy and Lars struggle against homophobia (violent and external, and internalised) that they themselves perpetuate (the first scene is Jimmy participating in a gay-bashing). And I mean, that complicity is worth exploring, it's a story worth telling, but what we end up with is a sensitive, empathic portrayal of how gosh darn hard it is to be a gay Neo-Nazi who in between fraught frottage sessions beats up on fags and Pakis. Everyone who is not Lars or Jimmy (such as Jimmy's brother (characteristic: junkie) or their creepy, slimy boss (characteristic: creepy/slimy)) is just a face and serves to further their connection, including the people they victimise. The moral is that homophobia and Nazis are bad, but you're almost left with the idea that virulent homophobia and racism are bad because they're destructive to people who are virulently homophobic and racist.

Once again, the gays and POC (not women, don't expect to see many women here) exist to teach a lesson -- but then again Jimmy and Lars are gayists, and the bashed guy from the first scene does reappear and you see the repressed, shocked rage that simmers in this guy, and the bashing does have consequences, so I just don't even know.

For all that the movie's full of long, pensive takes and quiet interludes, it moves at a pretty fair clip and, granting that the premise is not intrinsically flawed -- a possibility -- I can't help but wonder if it would improve on expansion, even to a miniseries (but then I tend to think that about practically everything).

Watch it, if you are so inclined, if such deeply tacky and offensive behaviour is not an immediate turn-off, because the love story really is terribly grand, Buster, and it does have something to say about how repression, oppression, and obsession work.


Man, I am so glad to purge my thoughts on this, I haven't been able to think about anything else for a whole day now.
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
No Subject Icon Selected
More info about formatting

ARF

has been on hiatus and is still under construction, so thanks for your patience! Email Arf She Said.

Most Popular Tags

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags