Brothers (2004)

i must have seen a different film!!

A Disappointing Continuation

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Very moving film takes seemingly familiar elements (two brothers in love with the same woman, a Cain and Abel good brother/bad brother set up) and makes it complicated, disturbing and sad. Abetted by excellent performances all around, this Danish film tells of a woman whose husband goes off to the Afghanistan War an is presumed dead. She forms a bond with his previously"bad" brother who tries to clean up his act for her and her children in the absence of his brother... only to have the brother return home from war - having been a prisoner - a deeply damaged man.As in "Things We Lost In the Fire"€ Bier shows a knack for setting us up to assume we know the roads a story will tread, only to take us somewhere richer, more affecting and more deeply human. There are flaws, but any film that quietly packs this kind of emotional punch about the damage that war does, the way people can change, and the deep messy-ness of families deserves to be seen.

"Brothers" is another outstanding film from Danish Producer, Director and Writer, Susanne Bier. After watching "Open Hearts" (2002), "Brothers"(2004), "After the Wedding" (2006) and last but not least "Things We Lost in The Fire" (2007) a recurrent theme emerges from her filmography. In "Brothers", Susanne tells us the story of two contrasting brothers, Michael (Ulrich Thomsen) and Jannik (Nikolaj Lie Kaas). Michael is a scrupulous Danish Officer and family man who is sent to Afghanistan on a rescue mission. Jannik is the younger brother who can't keep himself out of trouble and has recently been released from Prison following a sentence for robbery. Assisted by a beautiful soundtrack and an amazing photography, Susanne shows us the beautiful depth of Michael and Sarah's (Connie Nielsen) love before Michael is sent to Afghanistan. There is a scene at the beginning where Michael tells his soldiers to expect the unexpected in the war-scenario. This scene introduces a sense of 'impending doom' and tragedy that at first seems to be confirmed when Michael's helicopter is shot down. The amazing twist of irony in the narrative, is that the real tragedy is still to come. Prompted by a dysfunctional and emotionally inept father, Jannik decides to help his sister-in-law and nieces through the difficult bereavement. Maybe moved by grief initially, Jannik ends up falling in love with Connie Nielsen and they kiss each other. At the same time and after having survived the helicopter crash, Michael is captured by a group of afghan troops and locked up in a warehouse with a young army technician he was meant to rescue. The captors then decide the young soldier is no longer useful and force Michael to kill him with a lead-pipe to save his own life. The camp is then attacked by British troops who rescue Michael and bring him back to Denmark. Unable to deal with the guilt of having killed the young technician, and consumed by jealousy, Michael starts experiencing bursts of anger and mood swings. The plot reaches its dramatic peak, when the eldest daughter of the couple attacks Michael at the dinner table and in a very crude way tells his father that he is resentful because Sarah prefers to have sex with his brother. Enraged, Michael assaults his wife and brother and is arrested by the Police. The film ends with Sarah visiting Michael in Prison and asking him about what had happened in Afghanistan. At this point, Michael breaks down and starts sobbing in a scene of high emotional intensity.

I saw this gripping and haunting movie in 2005, and spent a long time thinking about it. I began a review, but never finished it because I could not find words adequate to convey the depth of my feelings; even now, I'm not sure that I can do justice to the story (which has been very ably described by many reviewers here already).Thematically, however, it's about a moral dilemma and a man's attempt to justify his decision - initially to himself, and then to others. Hence, in that, the story shares a similar theme as in Sophie's Choice (1982); those who have seen Meryl Streep as the agonist in that film know what she had to do.The twist here, however, is that the soldier faces inevitable death for himself, regardless of the choice he makes. The only question he must resolve is: if I do the right thing, I die immediately - if I do the wrong thing, I die at some other time. But, die I will...and so will another, regardless of what I do. Hence, in biblical terms, the viewer is implicitly asked: to what extent are we all our brother's keepers?Faced with that sort of choice, the soldier has only hope to hold on to - hope that he will not die too soon. And, fortunately for him, the plot allows the 'cavalry' to arrive before that happens.And that event sets up the story of that soldier's rebirth and redemption - all against a backdrop of a wife who thought he was dead, and an ex-con brother who puts his life on the line to help his brother come to terms with the enormity of his...choice, which may or may not have been a crime. I'd not seen any of these Danish actors before. Quite simply, they cannot be faulted in their performances. Technically, the film was well produced and presented. The script was brutally realistic, with the crucial torture scenes in Afghanistan almost unbearable.This is not a film for children. Nor is it a film for adults who cannot accept the truth about what soldiers can face in war.

Rarely a film comes along that resonates not only due to its aesthetic quality, but also metaphorically on the level of personal experience. Brothers is such a film. When I saw it, I was blown away.Michael (Ulrich Thompson) is the older and more stable brother of Jannik, played by the by now Danish Superstar Nikolaj Lie Kass, who must first bail his brother out of jail, then report to duty as a soldier in Afghanistan. The helicopter of his platoon is quickly shot down, and Michael finds himself held as a prisoner by an Afghan warlord with one other of his soldiers.Meanwhile, Michael's absence seems to have a good effect on Jannik, who befriends his family and children, and by all observances begins to turn his life around. In an interesting scene, the Afghan leader who has gotten a hold of a shoulder rocket but doesn't know how to use it, asks how assemble it. He confronts the other soldier who doesn't have the know-how how to arm it. When he starts to scream and it looks like he is going to kill them both, Michael Calmly steps in and shows all the steps necessary for engagement of the missile. Now everyone knows that this rocket will now be used to kill as many as a dozen more soldiers, but this is a choice that a person, Michael, has made under pressure that peaked my interest and almost sent chills down my spine. This is a person who loves his family so much and wants to live so badly to see them again, so much so, that he doesn't care for the moment that others will die, he just wants to live.The Afghani quietly notices Michael's will to survive, and soon thereafter off-handedly orders him to kill his comrade. By hand. Michael refuses, then when threatened summons up his will, and yes courage, and beats his comrade to death. It was like a 5.7 tremor shook when this happened. He wants to live so much, and feels he has so much to live for, that he is willing to do anything.Back home, Jannik and Michael's wife, Sarah (played by attractive Connie Nielsen), get news of Michael's death. Since Jannik has become one of the family and spends much time with them, opportunities arise for infidelity, served up with savory dramatic irony for the audience in the pitch-black theater. A raid on the Afghan camp ensues, and in moments Michael is free. And this is the beauty and power of the picture; after his release he is free in the physical sense but is in a spiritual choke hold from his previous action for the rest of the film. This is where the movie begins to take off. It is as if everything else was a primer for the real conflict. I do not think a screenwriter usually thinks about escalating conflict in this way. The entire film, as one reviewer notes, is "a marvel of screen writing." The way in which conflict in this film segues from one level to another is genuinely inspiring; from family, to the politics of war, to the home.This is exactly what low budget films should aim to do. In a production aspect, they should be sure to please a small group of the audience, this I imagine being the European Union in this scenario, and in a story aspect they should resonate with meaning and life. The Dogma 95 style of films also seem to help accentuate and streamline the message.This is a kind of movie which hardly anyone goes to see grosses $300,000 in the U.S., and then fifteen years later, someone comes along, feels it's power, and remakes it in English. They would perhaps draw out everything, and add money to the production budget, and maybe make a small fortune. One critic has said that this was the "Deer hunter for the war on Terror." From what I cam remember, I personally think it is a stronger film.There really isn't much one can do, in my opinion, to make Brothers a better film. In fact, I can not think of a single thing, which makes me look naturally elsewhere for reasons for its narrow box office appeal, in America at least. It is true then what I have been reading about Americans' aversion to reading subtitles, heck, to reading anything for that matter, other than the Star and the Enquirer. God Bless Oprah, and Oprah's book club. Sometimes you have to be big to be noticed, and maybe, just maybe, if this film was in English, with a higher production budget, it would be up for an Academy Award. But most probably, it would be made with much less skill and sensitivity than the original, as we have seen countless times with other foreign films such as Ringu, and Insomia, I am told.