Ole Ernst Movies

In this slick Danish thriller, a mysterious traveler arrives at the Copenhagen airport and the city is soon thrown into darkness. When the lights are turned back on, the stranger is rushed to a hospital suffering from bizarre Ebola-like symptoms. Soren (Ole Lemmeke), an ambitious junior virologist, is convinced that these symptoms portend an epidemic, and he risks his job to go to the apparent source of the disease: the backwaters of Romania. Accompanied by his medical student girlfriend (Kirsti Eline Torhaug), he searches Europe's impoverished netherworld hoping to gain the secret of the virus, and he soon becomes involved in grave-robbing and murder. Meanwhile, Interpol is pursuing occultist Vincent Monreau (played by the incomparably weird Udo Kier), who reportedly is responsible for firebombing a hospital in Bucharest and who appears to have some dark connection to the disease-stricken stranger. Monreau is convinced that the virus is of supernatural origins, presaged by the appearance of Stella Mala, a supernova supposed to appear at the beginning of Armageddon. Soon Soren's faith in reason is shattered when he is confronted by a plague that cannot be comprehended through science. In a similar vein to Lars von Trier's The Kingdom (1994), director Anders Ronnow-Klarlund uses disease as a metaphor for how the irrational and uncanny seep through the cracks of the ultra-modern societies of late 20th century Europe. This film was screened at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Ove Rolandsen (Bjørn Floberg) is preoccupied with getting ahead in the world, and having a bit of fun while he does that. It's 1903, and he works as a telegraph operator in a town on the northern coast of Norway. He'd also like to marry Elise (Marie Richardson), the daughter of a local factory owner. She's very nice looking, and she's also interested in him, but there are two obstacles to their getting married. In the first place, she is the fiancee of a ship-owner whose connections are useful to her father's business. In the second place, he's not very well off. He applies himself to his second vocation, inventing, in the hopes of discovering something which will rectify his poverty, and in the meantime, doesn't mind going to bed with the town pastor's pretty wife. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this frenetic detective comedy, punctuated with many explosions and car chases ending in crashes, a detective who lacks the sense to come in out of the rain persistently tracks a gang of heroin smugglers in the almost futile hope of ending their activities and bringing them to justice. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Bai (Le Ernst) is the stationmaster in a small whistle-stop town who must contend with the suffering of his dying wife Katrinka (Tammi Ost) in this depressing romantic drama. She knows her husband loves her but she has fantasies about Huus (Kurt Ravn), the shy estate manager who has suffered his own losses in love. This is the directorial debut for veteran actor Max von Sydow. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Director Lars von Trier stars in a double role in this experimental horror fantasy. He pretentiously portrays a director who spends a year and a half preparing to make a horror film with help from a government grant. In the second part, he plays a young physician who unknowingly has a plague virus planted in his medical bag. Fantasy sequences depict the possible horror that could come if the virus is unleashed on the public. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Director Jesper Hom has tried to recapture the look and the ambiance of Copenhagen at the end of World War II. Danish jazz pianist Leo Mathisen (played by Eddie Skoller), popular in the '30s and '40s, is the attraction that brings young Herbert (Nikolaj Egelund) and his friend Allan (Martin Elley) to the Munchin Inn for evenings of fun and entertainment. Unfortunately, Herbert and Allan also get mixed up with some shady characters and land on the wrong side of the law. A G.I. friend who devotes his life to booze and women proves not to be much help to the two lads, but they might be resourceful enough to come out ahead on their own. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This flat tale of teen innocence lost is based on a 1958 novel by Klaus Rifbjerg and features, aside from middle-class manners, Tore (Thomas Algren) -- a popular young high-school stud, his devoted buddy Janus (Allan Olsen), his girlfriend Helle (Simone Bendix), and Helle's mother Mrs. Jundersen (Susse Wold). Helle has consistently refused any sexual advances made by Tore, and since a sub-text of the plot seems to say that young teen men must have sex or else, Tore is seduced by Helle's mother. Meanwhile, Janus does not know about Helle's stance on her own virtue and finds a fast-and-loose young woman to initiate him into the wonders of sex. The effect of Mrs. Jundersen's indiscretion, however, is more than anyone could have expected. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In a sexual and romantic drama of intrigue, lies, and gossip, a young woman enjoys both a husband and a lover for a long period of time, having children by both men, before her deception begins to fall apart. Elise (Ann-Mari Max Hansen) is an outgoing, happy woman married to Henry (Ole Ernst), the town doctor. Because of a mix-up one day, she finds herself first compromised and then romantically involved with William (Henning Jensen), a captain of the Dragoons. Elise is an amateur actress in local theatricals and loves to invent games with Henry which involve them sneaking off for a secret rendezvous now and again in another town. Her story is told from the viewpoint of the town vicar, who may not be such an innocent bystander as he first seems. Eventually, gossip begins to run rampant, and Elise's life heads for a radical change.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Orengen, Der Forsvandt is a children's picture about a boy who runs away from home, and since there is not much character development, it is unclear exactly why he did it. Thirteen-year-old Jonas (Mads M. Nielsen) is the lad in question, faced with a depressed mother and the probable reason for her sadness, a father with interests that lie outside the family home and parties to attend. Yet the household is otherwise orderly and responsible, and Jonas has a good relationship with his siblings. In spite of the stable aspects of his life, he walks out one day and sets up an organized housekeeping off in the woods. Unfortunately for the film, somewhere between Jonas' family life and his decision to leave, the storyline fades and weakens. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This dramatic presentation features a black mugger and a white housewife as they talk about economic theories and civil rights. ~ All Movie Guide

This farce, tinged by social commentary, begins when a worker named Age (Nesper Christensen) is dumped by his girlfriend Else (Ulla Henningsen) for the death of their sex life, killed off by Age's overwork and exhaustion. Else also evicts his buddy Viggo (Tommy Kenter) from the living quarters that had been shared by the three of them. On the heels of that indignity, the two homeless friends lose their jobs at the factory where they both work, and then find themselves trying to escape a fate worse than death as the subjects of an experiment by an evil industrialist and his like-minded daughter. Eventually, life takes a turn for the better as they escape the unknown terrors planned by the menacing father-daughter duo. Age's exploits are interspersed or sometimes highlighted by Viggo's sax performances (by JesperThilo, an accomplished tenor saxaphonist), one of the better features of the film. The work of Hans Kristensen as a writer and director, with Hans Hansen as a cowriter, although known for its social commentary, cedes stage center to farcical humor here - for better or worse. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The trio of petty thieves, the "Olsen Gang", is a familiar to Danish audiences who have already seen the first 11 such films in this series. Egon Olsen (Ove Sprogoe) has decided to go get the heads of an insurance company engaged in an illicit weapons trade. Just when Egon bursts out with one of his inspired plans, it becomes obvious he will soon be desperately needing an equivalently ingenious bail-out from his cohorts. In the end, the corporate bosses seem to be the only unarmed opponents in this battle of wits. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide