Selvmordsskolen

This movie surprised me, and perhaps I'm going to give this movie more praise than it deserved. It's a mostly forgotten movie, and I only stumbled over it by chance. It is about a man who is lonely, unhappy and struggling to find his place in the world. It's a surreal film, but it follows the emotional journey the main character is on in a mostly straight forward way.

The movie is an obvious critique of modern life. It is at time maybe a bit too heavy handed, but I found myself forgiving it for it. One scene is a modern art exhibit where three balloons, representing faith, hope and love, are popped as they are not to the audience's liking. Another scene has a classical pianist being interrupted by a man claiming to play modern and true music - and doing so by chopping the piano to pieces with an axe. This theme runs though the entire movie, along with themes of loneliness, isolation and loss of identity.

I was surprised by how much I liked the visuals in this movie. It has some really nice shots, that would probably look gorgeous in an HD restoration (as compared to the VHS-quality I saw this in). The soundtrack (partly by the marvelous Fabricius-Bjerre) was also mostly good.

Now, lots of praise, but I also have to mention: this movie is probably about 20 minutes too long. Several scenes started to drag after a while, and I found myself getting bored several times throughout.