Hej! Scandinavia Film Series: Open Hearts
Open Hearts
dir. Susanne Bier, Denmark, 2002, 35mm, 113 mins, color, Danish w/ English subtitles
When Joachim carelessly steps into the path of a speeding car driven by Marie, fate in the form of a sudden accident brings together two happy couples – the long married Marie and Niels and just engaged Cecilie and Joachim. With his guilt-ridden wife’s misguided encouragement, Niels offers comfort to Cecilie, and his altruistic gesture quickly develops into a messy affair. Intricate and emotionally complex, Open Hearts tracks moment-to-moment shifts in tone and captures characters at their best and worst with a Cassavetes-like authenticity and a Renoiresque lack of easy moral judgment. Going a step beyond previous Dogme 95 efforts, Open Hearts successfully integrates art-film subjectivity into the more familiar verité approach.
One of Denmark’s leading directors of the last decade, Susanne Bier previously specializes in comedy, and her deft touch, together with the witty screenplay by Anders Thomas Jensen, counterpoints the plot’s tragic circumstances with flashes of romantic comedy, not as a sign of callousness but as a candid recognition of the irrepressible resilience of the human heart. The movie takes two strands of soap opera convention – a life-changing accident and an adulterous affair – and spins their suds into gold.
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