Niels Arden Oplev Movies
- 2008
A girl is torn between her faith and her feelings in this coming of age drama from Denmark. Sara Dahl (Rosalinde Mynster) is seventeen years old and has been raised in a family of strict Jehovah's Witnesses. Sara follows the tenets of the faith and often joins her family to distribute church literature door to door in hopes of attracting new converts. Despite the Dahl family's devotion to their church, there has been a great deal of tension in the household -- her father (Jens Jorn Spottag) has been unfaithful to her mother (Sarah Boberg), and while he's deeply contrite, she's unwilling to forgive him. One night, Sara goes out with some friends from school and they end up at a dance club where she meets a handsome boy named Teis (Pilou Asbaek). The two feel an immediate attraction to one another, and as Sara falls for Teis, she begins to encounter a world and ideas she's never considered before, and starts to question the doctrine that she's been taught since childhood. However, Sara's parents are uncomfortable with her relationship with Teis, and they discuss her new attitudes with John (Anders W. Berthelsen), the pastor at their church, and he confronts her both privately and publicly about the morality of her new love. To Verdener (aka Worlds Apart) was screened in competition at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rosalinde Mynster, Pilou Asbæk, (more)
- 2005
Danish director Niels Arden Oplev helmed and co-scripted (with Steen Bille) the gritty, revisionist coming-of-age tale We Shall Overcome - the story of a young boy's crusade against tyrannical oppression, and the thematic and temporal intersection of his experiences with the American Civil Rights movement. The story opens in the Danish countryside of 1969, when Peder Johansen (Jens Jorn Spottag), the father of 13-year-old Frits (Janus Dissing Rathke) experiences a psychotic breakdown and is promptly dragged off to a mental hospital. Frits spends the following summer watching the international news reports of the U.S. Civil Rights crusades. Those impressions stay in Frits's memory and inspire him that next fall, when he enrolls as a student at a boarding school ruled with an iron fist by the sadistic, oppressive headmaster Lindum-Svendsen (Bent Mejding). When the latter catches Frits spying on a pretty female classmate in the girls' locker room, and punishes him by ripping off half of one ear, it not only infuriates and humiliates Frits, but ignites the fire of indignation in his parents. The Johansens hire an attorney and take legal proceedings against Lindum-Svendsen. During the following weeks, they realize that nothing is beneath the sociopathic headmaster; his activities include withdrawing Frits from classes and manipulating the court trial by having Peder proven mentally incompetent. But nothing can stop The Johansens' fight for justice. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bent Mejding, Anders W. Berthelsen, (more)
- 1996
Drug-dealing Danish thugs engage in various criminal activities in violently hip but gritty crime drama. The interesting cinematography provides one of the film's points of interest. But for one scene all exterior shots seemed to be filmed in grainy black and white high contrast film that is then tinted an almost lurid orange. Interior shots are filmed in normal color. Janus has just been released from prison. He immediately teams up with his juvenile delinquent little brother Jakob, steals a car and meets gang leader Lasse at the Café Teuton. Lasse invites Janus to live in his sister Eva's apartment and then gives him his first assignment which is to go down to local housing projects and frighten the sick and elderly into handing over their drug prescriptions so that Lasse will have a good supply to sell. Trouble erupts when Janus and Eva get into a violent relationship. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
