Bakerman

Director: David Noel Bourke
Writer: David Noel Bourke
Producer: David Noel Bourke
Cast: Mikkel Vadsholt, Siir Tilif, Mia Lerdam
Country: Denmark
Year of release: 2016
Reviewed from: online screener
Website: www.facebook.com/officialbakermanfilm

Some film-makers pump out their movies like there’s no tomorrow: two, three or more every year. And there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that. Danish film-maker David Noel Bourke is more of an artisan. There was a six-year gap between his first two films, Last Exit and No Right Turn. Seven years further on, here comes his third movie, Bakerman.

It’s a drama with thriller elements. It’s not as bleak as the Scandinavian drama you see on TV, but it’s not a comedy. Serious but not grim. It’s very good. Not obviously commercial, but good and definitely worth watching if you like a movie that makes you think.

Mikkel Vadsholt is Jens, a middle-aged, overweight, balding man who lives alone in a cottage in the woods and works in a small bakery in the city. Once a week he referees amateur football. He occasionally goes out drinking with his younger colleague Brian (Brian Hjulman) who is a bit racist, a bit sexist and not unsuccessful with the ladies. Jens’ sister Anna (Mia Lerdam) runs a bicycle shop – very Danish that – although (unless I missed something) we only find out about halfway through that she’s his sister.

One day, Jens finds his car vandalised. When it happens again, he confronts three cocky youths who were fairly obviously responsible. Two walk away, sneering. The third stays and Jens, who’s quite a big fellow, despite his beer-gut, kills the guy with a tyre-iron.

Emboldened, and having taken the youth’s phone, he tracks down one of the others and kills him too. By now, Jens has something of a purpose in his life: he’s a vigilante. When he sees a man attacking a young woman, he punches the guy and rescues her. She is Mozan (Siir Tilif), who has neither family nor friends so ends up living with Jens in his cottage. Mozan tidies up for him; he shows her how to make bread. A friendship develops. Eventually he feels bold enough to take her to Anna’s birthday party, which may just be too much.

Apart from a couple of moments of violence, and a little tension as Brian explains how the police have been round asking questions about a local murder, there’s nothing obviously gripping here. But this is nevertheless a thought-provoking, thoroughly engaging film. And like many of the best films, it has a subtext.

At first glance, that could be a subtext about immigration and racism. The youths are immigrants, so is Mozan. The bakery has recently been taken over by a middle-eastern guy (Pejman Khorsand-Jamal) who has reduced the quality of the ingredients, caring only about profit margins not baking skill or customer satisfaction. Jens doesn't like him and he doesn't like Jens.

But no, the underlying theme here is heroism. Bakerman is a meditation on the nature of heroes and heroism. Jens feels like a hero when he starts taking out the city’s lowlifes, and especially when he rescues Mozan. Anna calls him a hero just for giving her a lift in his car. At Anna’s fancy dress party, Jens wears a generic superhero outfit. Even the film’s title is an allusion to heroics: he’s not Superman or Batman or Iron Man or Spider-Man, he’s Bakerman, Eventually Jens realises that life’s not about being a hero, it’s just about decency, understanding and caring. We don’t need heroes, we just need decent human beings. Opening yourself up to someone and letting them into your life – and letting them let you into their life – is heroic enough.

That, at least, is what I took away from this fine motion picture. It’s a serious, thoughtful, dramatic - in places, very touching - take on an aspect of the human condition. Vadsholt is excellent in the lead role, the supporting cast are all very good too, and Bourke both writes and directs with a deft hand and an observant eye. The film is in Danish (obviously) with word-perfect English subtitles. Since Mozan doesn't speak Danish, conversations between her and Jens are in English.

As produced, Bakerman is very different from the original concept, which was called White Pig and touted as 'Nordic noir'. Back in 2013, the synopsis for that read: "White Pig is the story of a series of grisly murders that shakes up a whole country. Told through the eyes of both the bad guy, Jens, who is the murderer and the good guy/girl, Mia, who is the police officer and how they both end up dangerously crossing each other and ultimately how they alter each others fate forever..." There are no police officers in Bakerman and the murders that Jens commits (for, like it or not, he is technically a murderer) don't shake up Denmark. It's interesting how films change during developmen. On the basis of Last Exit and No Right Turn, White Pig would probably have been a cracking 'Nordic noir' crime thriller. But I'm glad that David explored a different direction for the character and the story, creating something unique and fascinating.

David Noel Bourke movies are rare things and only come along very occasionally. But they are worth waiting for. You will enjoy and appreciate Bakerman.

MJS rating: A

No Right Turn

Director: David Noel Bourke
Writer: David Noel Bourke
Producer: David Noel Bourke
Cast: Sira Stampe, Laura Bach, Tao Hildebrand
Country: Denmark
Year of release: 2009
Reviewed from: screener
Website: www.lastexitproductions.dk

I like it when I come to a movie completely fresh with no expectations, no advance knowledge. I may well have watched the trailer for David Noel Bourke’s No Right Turn ages ago but it took me so long to get this screener to the top of my TBW pile that, by the time I popped it into the DVD player, I couldn’t recall a damn thing about it.

There was no sleeve with this disc, just a post-it from David (who, by a startling coincidence, e-mailed me the following day to ask if I had watched his film yet). I recall that David’s first feature Last Exit was very well made but rather unpleasant: one of those films that you’re glad you watched but don’t really want to watch again.

No Right Turn (why does he title all his films after road signs?) proves to be even better and, crucially, very enjoyable to watch. It’s a slightly stylised thriller with an occasional dab of black humour. Like Last Exit, it’s set in a Danish underworld of drugs, sex and crime but the characters here are either likeable or interesting, sometimes both. And in slightly overenthusiastic accordance with EU regulations which state that all Danish films must feature either Mads Koudal or Kim Sønderholm, both gentlemen have small roles here.

How odd is that? I’ve never been to Denmark and the number of Danish films I’ve ever seen could probably be counted on the fingers of one hand, yet I know three people involved in the Danish film industry.

No Right Turn has one of the greatest opening images I have ever seen. A young woman reclines in a steaming bath. Candles light the room and rose petals are scattered across the floor. Slowly sing ‘Happy Birthday to Me’ she raises a revolver to her head and plays Russian roulette with herself. We don’t know who she is, where she is or why she’s doing what she’s doing but we cannot switch off the DVD or change channels at this point. This is an enigma that we must resolve, even if it takes 90 minutes.

Actually, I don’t think we ever do resolve this enigma. The bath scene reappears near the end but I didn’t understand the film’s ending. So I don’t know: maybe it is explained but I just didn’t get it. Doesn’t matter - it’s an amazingly effective hook.

The film proper introduces us to Nina (Laura Bach - not the American actress of that name who was in Zombie Strippers) and Johnny (Tao Hildebrand: Postkort till Grand Prix). Johnny is a small-time crook who makes a living by delivering cocaine under the cover of delivering pizzas; customers actually do receive a pizza but it’s the contents of the little plastic packet on top that they’re paid for. From this work, Johnny is saving up enough money to eventually buy his own illicit establishment.

Ironically, Johnny has no idea that his wife Nina is a whore who spends her days, while he’s out delivering, screwing a succession of men. One of these is Teddy (Lars Lippert) although there’s a two-way emotional attachment there which makes him more than just a client. Sporting a pencil moustache, Teddy is a successful playwright whose hobby is collecting and restoring steam locomotives. His office is a converted railway wagon and is, again with the irony, a regular stop on Johnny’s delivery round.

I did wonder, as Johnny cheerfully whizzes round the city (I’m assuming it’s Copenhagen though it’s never named) on his moped whether his ever-present red helmet was some sort of symbolism because he’s, well, frankly he’s a knob. But I may be reading to much into this.

Nevertheless, Johnny is a bit of a prat, a petty criminal who is coked up most of the day and whose most notable achievement is his hot wife, of whom he is justly proud but oblivious to her other life.

One night, Nina gets fed up with Johnny in a bar where he has been haranguing a couple of blokes who took his wife’s picture (Mads Koudal: Footsteps, The Feral Generation, Merantau Warrior, plus Morten Steensgaard). She sets off home alone but is followed by the two men who attack and rape her in an alleyway. However, she is saved by the intervention of Monella (Sira Stampe), a slightly loopy artist who was the girl in the bath.

Over the ensuing weeks, Monella and Nina become good friends, a friendship which eventually transforms into a lesbian affair. They hang out in bars, rebuffing the advances of ‘sleazy bar guys’ (played by Kim Sønderholm: Craig, Deadly Pursuit, and Michael Rene Jensen: Craig, Pistoleros) and eventually a plan develops. Monella will ‘kidnap’ Nina and demand that Johnny hand over the key to the locker where he keeps his cash, then the two women will leave town together: it’s a sort of Thelma and Louise meets Ruthless People scheme.

This actual ‘thriller’ plot comes surprisingly late in the day but it doesn’t matter because the characters are so fascinating, so believable - and the world they inhabit so intriguing and so well-drawn - that we really don’t mind just tagging along with the film to see where it takes us. Because we can be sure it will take us somewhere worth going.

After sitting through so many films set in a criminal underworld where unpleasant people do cruel things to each other with scowls on their faces (and knowing that there are more such films in my teetering TBW pile) it makes a wonderful change to find a film where the characters, though they’re not exactly upright citizens, at least seem to have real lives. If I’m going to spend 91 minutes of my life watching fictional characters, they should at least be characters that someone might want to spend time with.

A clever, tightly honed script combines with assured direction and a central quartet of excellent performances (plus some fine background roles) to make No Right Turn a real joy to watch. Lars Lippert in particular looks to be having a whale of a time as Teddy, playing him as Michael Palin would have played the character if this film had been made in the UK in the 1970s.

The only downside is some occasional fantasy/dream elements, including the aforementioned ending, which are simply too obtuse for me. There’s a scene of Monella in the snow finding a pair of angel wings: very poetic, but what does it mean? Flora Nasseri Jensen is credited as ‘angel/little girl’ and other cast members include Sami Darr (who was in Danish horror anthology Speak of the Devil) as Johnny’s supplier, Danish-Japanese actor David Sakurai and Gauthier Bricmont as the barman.

Excellent cinematography by Eric Witzgall (Himmerland) gives No Right Turn the feel of a classic film noir without compromising an evocative colour palette, while Bourke handled his own editing. The brilliantly named Dorthe Bitsch was responsible for the make-up, Liselotte Justesen (Himmerland) was production designer and Jacob Moth (Last Exit) provided the music.

No Right Turn gripped me from beginning to end and comes thoroughly recommended.

MJS rating: A-

Last Exit

Director: David Noel Bourke
Writer: David Noel Bourke
Producer: David Noel Bourke
Cast: Morten Vogelius, Peter Ottesen, Gry Bay
Country: Denmark
Year of release: 2003
Reviewed from: screener DVD
Official website: www.lastexitproductions.dk

After watching David Bourke’s Danish indie feature Last Exit, I felt similar to how I felt after watching Cronenberg’s Crash. It’s not that there is any real stylistic or thematic similarity between the two, it’s just that in both instances I thought: ‘That was very good and I’m glad I’ve seen it, but I don’t really want to ever see it again.’

Last Exit is a grim, grimy, rather unpleasant look at the underbelly of Copenhagen, without a single likeable or sympathetic character - and I think it’s meant to be like that.

Morten Vogelius stars as Nigel, of English parentage but raised in Denmark, who is now living in Copenhagen after several years in the UK. Though his background is not gone into in any detail, he evidently owes a considerable amount of money to various parties and has an ex-girlfriend with a young son. Nigel has sought temporary relief from his responsibilities by moving to Denmark with his Danish ‘wife’ Maria (Jette Philipsen, whose name is unfortunately misspelled on the poster and curiously omitted from the cast list on the film’s website). He has a penchant for porn, she has a drug habit and they live together in a small flat with the lowest ceiling I have ever seen,

Seeking some form of income, Nigel meets a one-eyed stranger named Tobias (Erling Eliasson) in a bar who recommends him to a mysterious figure known only as ‘The President’. This turns out to be a scary, bald gangster (Peter Ottesen) whose mood swings between taught politeness and brief fury. He has two pet thugs, hulking Scandinavian ‘Full Force Finn’ (John Kelleher) and Latino weasel Pedro Rodriguez Iguana (Micah Epstein - surely not the same actor who was in the awful Numb?). When Nigel realises quite how much pain these chaps can inflict with a teaspoon (yes, a teaspoon: bear in mind how many eyes Tobias had...) he also realises that just by coming to The President’s office and speaking to him, he is dipping his toe into murky waters.

The President has a young woman named Tanya (Gry Bay, voted the 97th sexiest woman in the world by the readers of Danish FHM) also working for him, who is ‘assigned’ to Nigel and begs him to go to bed with her. He resists as long as he can, even though his marriage to Maria, which seems to be one of convenience that enabled him to move to Denmark, has become loveless and bleak. But eventually he gives in.

There is no real nudity in the film apart from the occasional flash of tits but there is a terrific love-making scene where Tanya and Nigel are both slightly high and the director projects various images onto their bodies. Very clever, stylish and effective.

Nigel’s first job for The President is simple: storing 50 boxes of dirty videos in his flat, but he mucks this up - or at least, The President tells him he has mucked it up - and each successive job drags him further and further into the seedy, sleazy underworld. However, as we learn about his abandonment of his British family and get hints at his not entirely legal past, it’s difficult to have any sympathy for the character. Eventually, he becomes involved in death and murder, not all entirely of his own doing.

There is one scene that completely baffled me, when Nigel is trying to get rid of incriminating evidence by cycling around Copenhagen, putting plastic carrier bags into widely space litter bins. As he is about to put the last bag into a wheely bin, he sees that there is a girl in there (it’s not clear if she’s dead, drunk or what). He then cycles back along his route, collecting all the carrier bags, and disposes of the evidence elsewhere. That made no sense.

The character’s downward spiral continues but the film seems to finish just short of an ending. There’s no climax or even an anticlimax: things escalate (or deteriorate, depending on how you look at them) and then everything just stops.

Providing some sort of subplot to, or commentary on, all this is a Scottish dope-seller named Jimmy (Nicholas Sherry) who talks at great length, spouting pseudoscientific nonsense about the meaning of it all and humanity’s place in the universe. While most of the characters are repellent (apart from Maria, whose drug addiction is never really explored and who makes an effort at one point to try and turn her and Nigel’s lives around), Jimmy is just massively, massively irritating and hearing him drone on his existentialist stoner claptrap is like being stuck with the most boring drunk person at an otherwise interesting party.

When we first meet Jimmy he hales Nigel by name, even though Nigel has never met him before. This, together with The President’s deliberate attachment of Tanya to Nigel, suggested some sort of conspiracy but in fact Jimmy’s role - in the sequence of events and in the film itself - is never explained and if Tanya is some sort of honey trap that doesn’t come across at all as The President seems to take no interest in her relationship with Nigel after putting the two together.

The film’s look is very rough and basic, mirroring its themes. Although there are too many effects for this to count as a Dogme movie, it does seem to use available light a great deal, there is a lot of handheld camerawork and the sound quality is sometimes a little poor. Where the film does score a lot of points is in the editing which is excellent. The publicity calls this ‘a film by David Bourke and André Moulin’ and both are credited as editors. (They also share the ‘camera operator’ credit while Moulin gets sole credit for cinematography and art direction.)

The acting is mostly okay, possibly because this is a Danish cast working in English (speaking a foreign language is not the same as acting in it). A few brief scenes, when The President loses his rag, are in unsubtitled Danish which is a brave and sensible move. A soundtrack of indie music, much of which sounds (to my ignorant ear) a bit like Goldfrapp, fits the visuals well but the film mercifully stops short of falling into the ‘90-minute music video' category that entraps so many indie movies nowadays.

There’s nothing wrong with Last Exit. I think it achieves what it sets out to do very well. I’m just not overly keen on what it sets out to do. It left me feeling dirty and in need of a shower, and because I felt no sympathy for anybody in the film, I wasn’t bothered by any of their suffering, most of which seemed to be brought on by their own greed and stupidity. As a study of the bottom level of life in Denmark, I guess this works but it’s not quite thrilling enough to be a thriller, not quite dramatic enough to be a drama, so I’m unsure what it is.

It’s a well-made, credible first feature but I would be lying if I said that I enjoyed watching it. A few other reviews have referred to the film as having elements of black comedy but that didn’t come across to me at all (unless they were referring to the deeply irritating Jimmy). I found the film to be unremittingly bleak and pessimistic to the point of nihilism and I assumed that was the intention.

Last Exit is currently available in Germany through a distributor called Cult Movies and a US release is planned.

MJS rating: B

review originally posted 1st October 2005