Adams æbler
Directed by:
Anders Thomas JensenScreenplay:
Anders Thomas JensenCinematography:
Sebastian BlenkovComposer:
Jeppe KaasCast:
Ulrich Thomsen, Mads Mikkelsen, Nicolas Bro, Paprika Steen, Ali Kazim, Ole Thestrup, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Gyrd Løfquist, Lars Ranthe, Peter Reichhardt (more)Plots(1)
Sentenced to community service at a small, countryside church, Adam, a middle-aged neo-Nazi, is warmly welcomed by the cheerful vicar, Ivan. Although Adam is crude, full of hostility, and clearly beyond redemption, Ivan encourages him to choose a goal that will occupy his time there. When Adam dismissively replies that he will bake an apple pie, Ivan assigns him the task of nurturing the church's lone apple tree. If by the time this unassuming tree has been attacked by crows, infested with maggots, and struck by lighting, you are not reasonably certain it has become the battleground for a fiercely irreverent struggle between good and evil, then you have not had the pleasure of meeting an Anders Thomas Jensen film. (AZ Films)
(more)Reviews (7)
Proper insanity. Such an utterly unpredictable and absurd script is not something you see very often. Adam’s Apples can’t be classified into any genre, there are moments that are easygoing and funny, followed by sadness and rage. Regardless, it’s a brilliant film in every aspect. PS: It’s impossible not to be reminded of Trier’s The Kingdom.
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On an Old Testament basis, Jensen created a layered story in which visually uncharacteristically exacerbated motifs play the main role in Nordic cinema of the "great other" (God/ reality / symbolic order... whatever...), but hand in hand with them go the very typical "indirect dialogues". The characters talk, but the meaning of their speech depends on a symbolic plane - not in what is said, but in the subtle interaction of hints, silences and hidden meanings. Mads Mikkelsen's character, however shrouded in biblical stigmas, is purely human at his core, and his message that it is necessary to escape from reality at the cost of merciful deceptions softens even the sometimes "overly" monumental symbols. It's not about them, about some elusive entities and big ideas, but rather about that warm-frosty secondary life in which all the characters experience firsthand that each of us needs apple pie and closed eyes to turn the seemingly cruel absurdity of existence into a bearable game. Whether Ivan is Job (or just a blind man) and Adam enticed by Satan (or just a fool living a delusion), Adam's Apples tastes sour and you can't tear yourself away from it. There's a taste of hope, escape and sweet returns in the film. Not a dizzyingly deep, yet wonderfully "true" film about having no lasting truths and unshakable certainty. A black biblical tragicomedy.
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You got to hand it to the Danes. Political correctness is a fairly unknown concept to them. Tasteful black humor with wider significance. At first glance perhaps a bizarre combination, but incredibly funny and, most importantly, good. After Flickering Lights, Anders Thomas Jensen again confirms his talent for “good little" movies. And from now on I am going to give apple pies a very wide berth. You never know what Nazi has been rummaging about in them.
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It stars Mads Mikkelsen, but the film was weird for my taste. I wasn't extremely interested in anything, it's not funny or entertaining, I didn't really like the characters, and a few minutes after it was over I had trouble telling in two sentences what it was about. Not much 50%
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Current cinema has a lot of problems, but perhaps the most threatening of all is political correctness, which reeks of self-censorship and self-deception. In the end, it annoys the viewer by leading to predictable points and dulling the edge of satire, humor, and serious drama that aims to criticize social disorder. It is precisely the political incorrectness and absolute unpredictability of the behavior of the film characters that significantly elevates Adam's Apples above today's film productions. The psychological battle between a passionately believing priest, a cynical technocrat in the form of a local doctor, and, above all, a discharged convict active neo-fascist Adam is presented in an unusual form of tragicomedy, which often teeters on the furthest boundary of what we can label as socially acceptable. However, that is precisely what makes it valuable to me, and very few films in recent years have given me as much joy as this one. Overall impression: 95%.
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You’d expect me to boo this film, as my opinion of all kinds of gods and blind faith is...well, let's just say it’s not good. I had a surprisingly good time with this film, though. Ivan was truly perfect in his consistent and almost unshakable denial of reality. The film was full of excellent, sophisticated humor. Plus, the combination of oil – eggplant – racket was simply hilarious.
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Every now and then you like to give something you know nothing about a chance and find out nothing beforehand. This Danish film is a great example of what a film has to offer. A script that will take your breath away with many scenes, furthermore enhanced by excellent acting performances led by Mads Mikkelsen, who is one of my very favorite actors.
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