FRI OS FRA DET ONDE

Category: Feature Film
Director: Ole Bornedal
Country: Denmark, Sweden
Year: 2009
Length: 93'
Production Status: completed

Summary

Lars and Johannes are brothers with very little in common. Johannes is a high-powered lawyer with a beautiful wife and two children; Lars is a truck driver and a drunken brute who beats his girlfriend. Having returned to his hometown in the country, Johannes hopes for a less hectic, more genuine lifestyle. But trouble is underfoot when Lars runs over a woman in a moment of inattention. He sees only one way out: put the blame on the Bosnian refugee Alain, whose post-traumatic stress has impaired his mental functions. But when Lars, the God-fearing husband of the victim, Ingvar, and their friends close in on the Bosnian, Johannes stands up for the hard-working man and brings him home with him. Undeterred, the violent, drunken horde makes their way to Johannes' secluded house, in which Johannes, his wife, his children and Alain all fear for their lives. When words no longer suffice to contain the madness, a siege begins, in which unchained anarchy dictates a scenario of terror...
With a critical nod to American cinematography and religious myths, Ole Bornedal depicts a European version of xenophobia in a disquieting social thriller reminiscent of New Hollywood. Best known for his chilling international hit "Nightwatch", Bornedal is at his genre filmmaking best in this harrowing allegory on hatred in an archetypal small Danish town.

Photo © Thura Film

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