Bodil Udsen Movies

Director Kristian Levring examines middle-class disenfranchisement in contemporary Copenhagen with this chilling psychological drama about a family man who just can't help but suspect that he's not as happy as he should be. Mikael (Ulrich Thomsen) is a workaholic husband and father who's recently taken some time off work to move his family into his wife's childhood home in the suburbs. He wants to learn how to relax, and it seems like this latest move is a step in the right direction. His wife, Sigrid (Paprika Steen), is a successful executive, their teenage daughter, Selma, seems content with their decision to relocate, and the family is surround by a great support system that includes kindly Frederik (Lars Brygmann) and his girlfriend, Ellen (Stine Stengade) -- so why is it that Mikael is still feeling so strained all of the time? Unable to sleep and constantly wound up, Mikael seizes the opportunity to take part in a drug test for a new antidepressant that Frederik is helping to market. At first the drug seems to have a considerably positive effect on Mikael's outlook, though before long he's isolating himself from family and friends while growing more detached than ever before. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

This Danish film has a comic beginning and a tragic end as it follows a Danish man on his quest to find his biological father in Portugal. When Jan, a man in his thirties, suddenly discovers he is adopted he immediately sets out to find his birth parents. His mother, an ex-cabaret singer is not too hard to find. Together the two head off in a taxi to a small town in Portugal to search for dad. Upon arrival, the mother refuses to assist any further and locks herself in her hotel room. As Jan searches, he meets and falls in love with Constanca. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Ole Ernst plays Peter von Scholten in this historical film biography. Appointed by King Frederick VI (Henning Moritzen) as governor of the Virgin Islands, Peter fights for the education and liberation of the island's black residents, former slaves, while keeping a black mistress on the islands and a wife at home in Denmark. Peter establishes schools for the children and avoids a bloody insurgence from locals bent on violent overthrow of the government. The former governor is charged with treason and dies a dejected man soon after the unfair charges are overturned. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

This symbolic drama is loosely based on a somber story from Hans Christian Andersen. Daniel Duval plays Death, not in the usual grim reaper sense but merely as a man in a grey flannel suit. The Mother (Anna Karina) offers her hair to a guardian of Death's Garden, her eyes to a vehement protest marcher, and her embrace to a man who is freezing. Death allows the Mother to get past her grief as her son lays dying. Tove Maes plays the Kindergarten Teacher, with Bodil Udsen as the Lady Janitor and Gustaf Hagstroem as the ill-fated child. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Cursed with a sensitivity his mother does not possess, a young pre-adolescent boy suffers from the rejection occasioned by his mother's behavior. The two are vacationing on the Jutland peninsula in Denmark during World War II while his mother, a divorcee, has an affair with a German officer in the Wehrmacht. She is oblivious to the disapproval of those around her, but the boy isn't. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

A widow of a sea captain still believes her husband is with her. She talks to him, serves him food and reveres his memory as a good and honest man. Her sister claims he was a womanizer with not one, but two illegitimate children, and she brings the captain back to life to prove her point. The children, a boy and a girl now grown, have fallen in love and contemplate marriage with no knowledge that they are brother and sister. When the widow finds out, she merely smiles and allows the wedding ceremony to take place in this amusing comedy. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi