Submarino (2010)

Load of rubbish!!

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Blistering performances.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Am not a big fan of depressing socially relevant dramas--however if you are you will love Submarino.The film shows how destructive alcoholic parents can be. We follow two boys who are neglected by an alcoholic mother.Most of the film is devoted to following these two boys now in their 30s for a short time. They have separately developed dysfunctional lives themselves.The oldest boy can be violent and has served time for it. The younger brother is a heroin addict with a young son.A side plot was lifted from Mice and Men by Steinbeck--a socially isolated inept man murders a girl. It is done quite convincingly. Watch it to see.

Danish screenwriter and director Thomas Vinterberg impressed me beyond words with his second feature film "The Celebration" (1998) which was made three years after he founded Dogma 95 with Lars Von Trier and strongly influenced by this concept. In his latest film it early on becomes evident that Thomas Vinterberg has distanced himself from the Dogma 95 period and created a far more individual style. The story is set in present day Copenhagen, Denmark and tells a tale of two brothers branded by a childhood incident which has estranged them. Nick battles his anger on a daily basis through beer-drinking and weightlifting and has a strange relationship to his single-parent neighbour named Sofie, and on the other side of town his younger brother named Martin tries to raise his six-year-old son while nursing his heroin addiction. "Submarino" which was adapted from a novel written by Danish author Jonas T. Bengtsson in 2007, is reminiscent of Danish filmmaker Ole Christian Madsen's "Nordkraft" (2005) though it proceeds it by far. The bleak and unappealing milieu depictions are very authentic and the harshness of this unsentimental story about family ties are both intensified and contrasted by the deliberate use of strong light and vivid colors. Thomas Vinterberg and Danish co-writer and filmmaker Tobias Lindholm conveys this gritty and raw social-drama through a forceful linear narrative, tells several minor stories through a few supporting characters played convincingly by actress Patricia Schumann and Danish actor Morten Rose which builds up towards a grand scale study of character concerning a man's yearning for reconciliation and redemption, which is the core of this majestic piece of storytelling which i consider as one of the greatest achievements in recent years of Scandinavian cinema."Submarino", which premiered In competition at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival in 2010, is a small love-story, a story about a dysfunctional friendship and a multifaceted story about a deeply damaged relationship between two brothers who are gradually descending into unredeemable paths of self-destruction. Nordic filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg's brilliant filming and mixture of long and short takes increases the pace in a thematically challenging film which is seen from the main character's point of view as he often wanders through the streets of Denmark's capital looking for the courage to once and for all confront his past and seek out his brother. This complex character is embodied by Danish actor Jacob Cedergren whose towering acting performance earned him a Best Actor nomination at The 23rd European Film Awards in 2010.

We see two separate but continuously interleaving stories of two brothers, each trying to cope with their daily lives, overall providing for a pessimistic view on their lives, riddled with drugs, violence, alcohol, bad housing circumstances, but at the same time trying to deal with their responsibilities like caring for a kid. The title of the film says it all: it stands for a method of torture, where someone is kept under water until he nearly drowns.Though knowing no people living in similar depressing circumstances, casting and acting looked very convincing to me. Apart from that, we saw a sequence of events that kept us wondering what would happen next. All this resulted in a "page turner" experience, fundamental to a good movie.Alternating between the stories of the two brothers was an extra bonus that made this film entertaining throughout. They each live their own separate lives, under circumstances that are very different but equally troublesome. Their respective paths cross each other in less than a handful of situations. Once you get a fix who the main characters are, this way of structuring two story lines works perfectly.The film opens with a prologue, wherein two young boys imitate the baptism of a newly born child "just like they do in church". After that, the real story takes off, but I could not connect the dots at the point where the prologue moves on to the actual two story lines. Maybe I was not paying attention enough. I had to wait until the final scene before I understood. Regardless, it did not hinder my appreciation of the film as a whole.Given all things happening you cannot expect everyone to live happily ever after. Nevertheless, the finale of the movie shows a moving scene under impressive musical tones, where even the toughest role players seem to show some tears. It may be intended by the film makers to leave us with an optimistic feeling after all, with some silver lining around the clouds.

I have not read the novel, and barely knew that this was based upon one. This film is like a splinter in your heart, from the first frame to the last. It is pushed to the limit of what we can handle of authentic misery. The social realism, so unrelenting, such rich detail to it, and none of it strains credulity. I was interested in this from when I first heard of it, and when I found out it was by Thomas Vinterberg, the man behind Festen and Dear Wendy, I knew I would watch this. He does wonders with the editing and the cinematography, creating a bleak and mundane(not to be confused with ugly or boring) feel to the visuals, matching the lives of the people we are witnessing and their environment. The camera stays "in the background", letting what we see speak for itself. This has impeccable writing, the events, the dialog(and its delivery), the crowning little touches, it's all excellent. In the end, what truly makes this work beyond belief is the amazing acting from everyone(who are all perfectly cast, as well), and that definitely also goes for the children(who, might I add, are charming and sweet kids, too, including the baby; seriously, can't you count on one hand the infants in movies that are *genuinely* cute? This is one of the only ones, in over a century of the medium), who deliver some of the most astonishing performances seen from ones around that age. Honestly, there is perhaps one single(and entirely understandable) moment that isn't completely convincing, but everything that comes before or since is. In spite of all that we see them do, we sympathize with the credible and well-developed characters. There is a lot of disturbing content, a bit of violence, some sexuality and infrequent strong language in this. I recommend this to anyone mature enough for the subject matter, at least if you can handle it. 10/10