Brothers (2004)

A remarkable movie in several ways. The first is just that it's well made, with two main layers of story line that are compelling, and some surprising and mostly believable turns. The second is that we (in the U.S.) have a look at the war in Afghanistan from non-American eyes. The echoes are inevitable, and so are the differences, in attitude by the soldiers and in public reaction.

The lead actor Ulrich Thomsen is compelling and versatile, and in some ways makes the movie. His range (which you have to see for yourself or you'll be tipped off) is terrific. His wife, played by better known Connie Nielsen (in her first Danish movie, even though she is Danish herself, and knows seven languages) is perfect, too, though she plays someone who is admittedly "boring" and so has less range. Finally, the lead man's brother, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, is charming and a wild card, making the trio appropriately imbalanced.

I say all this because it's an acting movie, and a movie about relationships and therefore about plot. It's not a war movie, but more about the effects of war. It's recommended for people who have absorbed American movies like The Hurt Locker. But more than that, it's just a well made, emotional, human interest film. There are a couple flaws (including the key part about the helicopter crash, which just doesn't hold up to common sense), but they are small in the larger, gritty realism of the whole.

The family man Major Michael Lundberg (Ulrich Thomsen) is happily married with his beloved Sarah (Connie Nielsen) and adores his two daughters Natalia (Sarah Juel Werner) and Camilla (Rebecca Løgstrup Soltau). His younger brother Jannik (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) has just left prison on probation for bank robbery and has issues with his father Henning (Bent Mejding). Michael invites Jannik to have dinner at home with their family. When Michael arrives in Afghanistan, his helicopter crashes and he is considered missing in action. However, he is captured and sent to a camp where he meets the radar technician Niels Peter (Paw Henriksen). After a long period imprisoned, Micahel is forced to kill Niels with a bar to survive. Meanwhile Jannick comforts Sarah and the children and he becomes close to Michael's family. When Michael is rescued, he comes back home emotionally detached and paranoid. Further, he is convinced that Sarah and Jannik have slept together during his absence. When the envious Natalia lies during the birthday dinner party of her sister telling that her mother and Jannik had shagged to upset her father, the disturbed Michael triggers an intense paranoia jeopardizing his family.

"Brødre" is a powerful and realistic drama about lives destroyed by war. This film is extremely well-acted, with an adequate cast that gives credibility to the plot led by the gorgeous and excellent Connie Nielsen. The sensitive director Susanne Bier of "Efter Brylluppet" makes another extraordinary movie based on the family dynamics. Jim Sheridan remade this film in 2009, but in a shallow teen "americanization" version. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Brothers"

A kind of prune Danish about a happily married couple, Michael and Sarah and their two doll-like daughters, and Michael's reckless and irresponsible younger brother Jannik. Michael, a major in the army, is sent to Afghanistan where his helicopter is shot down, and he's thrown into a prison cell with a Danish comrade. Beaten, and with a gun at his head, Michael is forced to batter to death his cell mate and friend.

Meanwhile, back home, having been informed mistakenly that Michael was dead, Sarah and Jannik come to respect one another and even to be attracted to one another, although nothing goes beyond a tentative but meaningful kiss.

Michael is rescued and returned to his home. But, unable to face his own guilt, he claims never to have seen any other prisoners, and he tells his family nothing about his part in the murder, which, although bloodless, is an especially brutal scene. He's not the guy who left home. He partly blames his family for the killing because it was of them that he was thinking when he bashed his friend's head in. He's irritable, suspicious of Jannik and Sarah, bullies the two kids, strikes his wife, and finally is jailed for smashing his own home. Sarah visits him and orders him to tell of his experiences or she will leave him for good. He tells her, and presumably Michael recovers and the family remains intact. I say "presumably" because this isn't a simple movie with simple answers to questions with labyrinthine implications. The film doesn't endorse the cliché of "getting it off your chest" and putting it behind you. It's not that dumb.

That, basically, is the story. It's a rather long movie considering that it isn't very dense with incident. I kept waiting for boredom to set in but it didn't happen. For one thing, Connie Nielson as Sarah is very attractive. For another, the performances all around were outstanding. Michael, in particular, embodies the sort of compulsive military type who believes that everything should be in order, that individuals should take responsibility for what they do, and that talking solves nothing. John Wayne would have approved. Then, too, I was curious to see just how far this post-traumatic stress would drive Michael. Would he really kill his family? We know he's capable of the most tempestuous emotions, despite his outer reserve, because we have seen him scream with horror when a cocked pistol is pressed against his forehead.

Finally, it gradually came to me that this is a story about people who fought terrorism and are not Americans, although the invasion of Afghanistan and the toppling of the Taliban was a response to the attacks of 9/11. In many Europen cities on September 12th, 2001, major newspapers ran headlines like, "Today We Are All Americans." And some of those nations went to war with us and some of their soldiers died doing it. It has been not quite six years since those horrible initial events. And who would march beside us today? Where are OUR brothers now? What happened? It's a sobering and enlightening movie.