Peter Aalbæk Jensen Movies

A woman struggling with her new responsibilities as a parent must also come to terms with her troubled relationship with her mother in this psychological drama from writer and director Heidi Maria Faisst. Katrine (Laerke Winther) has recently given birth to her first child, and she feels defeated by the experience; the new baby is cranky and doesn't respond well to breast feeding, and Katrine isn't sure what to do. Adding to Katrine's emotional woes, her husband Andreas (Mads Riisom), seemingly unaware of her discomfort, goes away on a business trip only days after she returns home, and her mother Lise (Solbjorg Hojfeldt) arrives to help out. Katrine and Lise have never had a warm relationship, with the mother making no secret of her disapproval, and as Katrine struggles with feeling of maternal inferiority, Lise's aggressive and controlling personality comes to the forefront, making a painful situation even worse for the new mother. Velsignelsen (aka The Blessing) was an official selection at the 2009 Rotterdam International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This enormously controversial psychodrama-cum-horror film from Danish enfant terrible Lars von Trier charts the degeneration of a marriage into apocalyptic violence, chaos, and insanity following an unthinkable domestic tragedy. The film opens with a prologue. While they make love in their apartment on a snowy winter afternoon, a husband and wife known only as "He" and "She" (Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) fail to keep an eye on their young toddler. In a horrific turn of events, the child wanders over to an open window, entranced by the snow cascading down, and falls two stories to his death. Von Trier then divides the remainder of the film into four chapters, beginning with "Grief." In that segment, the woman finishes a month's hospitalization, and accuses her husband of apathy over the child's death, but proceeds to take responsibility for it herself; he calmly and rationally guides her through this process. In the second segment, "Pain," she confesses to him that she's most terrified of their property in the forest, because she spent time with her son there over the preceding summer; as a form of therapy, he takes her to that locale on a wilderness retreat. She appears to grow more calm and rational over their first days in that milieu. Yet the recovery, it seems, was only illusory, and the subsequent two chapters, "Despair (Gynocide)" and "The Three Beggars," depict the woman's shocking and abrupt regression into unbridled insanity, culminating with grotesque sexual violence against herself, gruesome acts of destruction against her husband, and an apocalyptic climax. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

A happily married couple discovers just what kind of lasting implications a simple conversation can have after bringing up a taboo subject over dinner with friends and discovering a division they never knew existed. Lars and Susanna have been married for years, yet their love today is as strong as it was the first day they locked eyes. They both have great jobs, drive nice cars, and share a spacious home with their teenage daughter -- who is about to strike out on her own. Susanna's friends Ann and Ulf serve as almost a mirror image of herself and her husband; both are highly intelligent, financially secure, and extremely well-spoken. One night, as the two couples sit down for dinner together, Susanna steers the conversation toward the affairs of a close colleague. Much to Susanna's surprise, the topic elicits fierce reactions from her dining partners. As the debate about the subject grows increasingly passionate, fundamental splits are revealed that may run too far and too deep to mend. Could it be that the future relationships between these longtime friends -- and perhaps even the couples themselves -- have finally reached the breaking point after so many years of contentment and joy? ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A man's inability to prevent his girlfriend from dying in a vicious attack festers into an all-consuming hunger for revenge that threatens to destroy both his own life and the lives of the ones he cares for most in director Josef Fares' introspective revenge drama. Leo and his girlfriend Amanda were on their way home from his thirtieth birthday party when they were violently attacked by two strangers. While Leo managed to escape relatively free from harm, Amanda was shot during the course of the altercation and died in the hospital shortly thereafter. Subsequently feeling completely powerless and unable to deal with the profound loss, Leo proves incapable of preventing his grief from morphing into something far more insidious. Though his friends do their best to try and steer him off of this self-destructive path, nothing they can say proves helpful in slowing his heart-rending cycle of hate and despair. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Left at a loss as to what measures must be taken in order to save their crumbling society, the Danish government enacts martial law and begins systematically executing tax evaders, welfare abusers, and various other inexpedient citizens in director Anders Ronnow Klarlund's blackly comic satire. The time is the not-too-distant future, and the "New Copenhagen Criteria" has finally been enacted. A government mandated system in which any citizen deemed a drain on the state is classified as expendable has found a large collection of potential deadbeats rounded up for questioning in a make-shift Guantanamo Bay-style prison camp constructed on the site of a commandeered elementary school. Their interrogator: Major Christian Andersson (Søren Pilmark), a ruthless judge, jury, and executioner whose activities are monitored by wishy-washy Parliament representative Folke (Soren Fauli). After forcing a false confession from artist-turned-bureaucrat (Tommy Kenter) and then putting a bullet in his head, Major Andersson finds his trigger-happy ways thwarted by the very woman who drafted the disastrous criteria. Though currently being detained in the schoolyard and awaiting judgment, suspected welfare abuser Belinda (Louise Mieritz) is actually former civil servant Sidse, the mastermind of the "New Copenhagen Criteria." Aghast at what has become of her well-intending plan, Sidse soon aligns herself with a fearless group of rebels while coaching her fellow detainees in implementing a legal loophole that may just help them escape execution. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

When an infamous porno star dies after a drug overdose, her clergyman brother returns to town to care for her five-year-old daughter and seek revenge against the people responsible for her decline in director Anders Morgenthaler's animated stylish animated thriller. As "Princess," Christina had earned fame as one of the adult film industry's most popular stars, but years of drug abuse have finally taken their toll. When Christina finally succumbs to her addiction, her brother, August, takes a furlough from his missionary work overseas to lay his sister to rest and look after her young daughter, Mia. August isn't your typical man of the cloth, though, because when he finds out exactly how his sister died, he brings Mia along on a mission of revenge that will find the pair embarking on a violent descent through the darkest depths of the inner-city underworld to clear his sister's name and dish out a little vigilante justice -- Old Testament style. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Alexandre Dumas's classic adventure story gets a fresh visual adaptation -- this time using stop-motion puppet animation -- in this interpretation from Latvian animators Janis Cimermanis and Dane Gert Fredholm. During the reign of Louis XIII, young but gifted swordsman named D'Artagnan leaves the small town of his birth to come to Paris and offer his services to the King's Musketeers. D'Artagnan initially finds himself at odds with three of his new colleagues, Porthos, Aramis and Athos, but a series of duels between them brings the four men together, and they become close friends and comrades. After a cache of valuable jewels goes missing, the Musketeers set out to find them, which leads them into unexpected intrigue with the Queen of France, a meeting with a beautiful maiden, and a startling discovery about the mysterious Cardinal Richelieu. De Tre Muskaterer (aka The Three Musketeers) was the first directorial assignment for veteran animators Cimermanis and Fredholm. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The politics of slavery and the follies of nation-building highlight Danish director Lars von Trier's thought-provoking follow-up to the director's 2003 drama Dogville, featuring The Village's Bryce Dallas Howard in the role originally played by Nicole Kidman, and shot in the same stage-bound style as its predecessor. Shortly after leaving Dogville, Grace (Howard) and her father (Willem Dafoe) wander into a gated Alabama community still operating under the tenets of slavery. Appalled to stumble across a brutal scene in which a white master is viciously lashing his slave (Isaach de Bankolé), Grace hastily intercedes and pleads with the abusive man to treat his workers with respect and dignity. When merciless matriarchal plantation owner Mam (Lauren Bacall) dies shortly thereafter, the remaining slaves, who have never tasted freedom and only known life under "Mam's Law," implore the sympathetic Grace to help ease their turbulent transition toward democratic rule, with disastrous results. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Anders Ronnow Klarlund's fantasy-action film Strings tells the tale of Hal Tara, the son of a slain ruler who sets out to settle the score with those who dispatched his father. Interestingly, all of the characters in the film are marionettes, explaining the title of the film to some degree. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Anna (Ann Eleonora Jørgensen of Italian for Beginners) has just been hired as the chaplain at a women's prison. Inexperienced, but compassionate and energetic, she begins to feel her way amongst the prisoners. Soon, a new prisoner, Kate (Trine Dyrholm of The Celebration), is transferred to the prison and causes a stir. Marion (Sonja Richter of Open Hearts), a junkie, has heard that Kate helped another prisoner get clean and goes to her when her fellow prisoner and dealer, Jossi (Sarah Boberg), cuts her off. Marion kicks heroin, and believes that the introspective Kate has healed her. When Anna gets wind of this, she goes to see Kate, but Kate doesn't want to talk to her. She's even a bit hostile, telling Anna to look after herself and the baby in her belly. Anna believes herself infertile after fruitlessly trying to have a child with her loving husband, Frank (Lars Ranthe). She's shocked to discover that she is actually pregnant, but her joy turns to dismay when she learns that the fetus may have a serious birth defect. Meanwhile, Henrik (Nicolaj Kopernikus), a mild-mannered guard, finds himself increasingly drawn to Kate, to the point of putting his job in jeopardy, while the ruthless Jossi, losing business, feels threatened by the strange new inmate. Writer/director Annette K. Olesen and co-writer Kim Fupz Aakeson made In Your Hands in the Dogme style, shooting on video at Nyborg State Prison. The film was shown at the 2004 Berlin International Film Festival and selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center for inclusion in New Directors/New Films. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide