The Bench

Brilliant movie. Jesper Christensen puts his soul into this part as Kaj, who drinks so much, he's dying. Suddenly his daughter appears, who he has not seen since she was about 4 years, so she can't recognize him. She has a son now, and a violent husband. Kaj just hangs out with the locals on a bench, drinking beers and stronger stuff. He's sunken so low, he's negative towards everything and everybody. But now, where he has a grandson, he wants to pull himself up - to live again. But is it too late? It's so great to watch the similar reality these actors/actresses has put in their roles. Jesper Christensen really deserves some important awards for this part. I also enjoyed Halfdan E.'s score very much.

I can see on the message boards, that this film does not come with English subtitles - only Danish for the hearing impaired, so foreigners don't get much help ... however, the Cinema version should have English subtitles.

It is actually a great shame, because this film is not really about something special Scandinavian.

Above all, it is good to see, that really good movies touching important themes can be done without a Hollywood budget.

There is an old quote in Danish culture: "People say that Jeppe is drinking, but they don't say why Jeppe is drinking". This film illustrates this point very well.

But the film is part of a trilogy, so maybe they make a boxed set in the future with English subtitles ... one can only hope.

I have recently watched this excellent Dannish movie on satellite channel.Regrettably I was deprived of the opportunity to understand dialogs as there was neither English translation nor subtitles. Nevetheless, that language barrier had not prevented me from understanding the essence of the movie and conversely watching this movie in Dannish emphasized scenes regarding alcoholics, contradictions and attitude towards lonely poverty-stricken generally in Europe and particularly in Denmark. The problem of solitude is pivotal in this movie. Loneliness kills us faster that whatever disease. The movie is full of sadness and sympathy. I recommend everybody to watch it.

Here's a comment to this Norwegian Øysten guy! To me it sounds more like you have a problem with Danes in general and are just using the movie as an excuse to utter some very stupid remarks about Danish movies. You sound like a poor fellow with a self esteem problem. It's not our problem that Norway is not exactly the capital of film making right now. During the last 10 years or so Danish films have had an impressively high level of quality. Sure, there have been some not very good and some very bad movies, but the general level is high. If you take a look at the over-exposed American movies it's only a low fraction of those that are even worth mentioning and yet they are still dominating the cinemas everywhere, also in Denmark. Of course, the success of Danish films has made the fraction of American movies decrease a bit which is a very positive thing. In the 80's we excelled in extremely bad comedies so the last 10 years have been a giant leap forward. You can say what you want about the Dogma95 concept but it resulted in a series of good movies and a lot of fruitful discussions about film making in general. Now, Dogma95 has seized to exist (it was only intended to be officially "running" for 10 years) which is probably also a good thing because otherwise the concept could end up as a parody of itself. Dogma95 caused a little stir in the movie industry and rightfully deserves a note in movie history. It's like Lars Von Trier himself: You can love or hate him, but you cannot possibly ignore him.

We've all of us seen them: the alcoholics wasting their lives sitting on our cities' benches. What we don't see is the drama behind the alcohol.

What struck me while watching Baenken is that it is all so believable and therefore the more painful to watch. The story of this film becomes less important than the leading character's death wish. His cynical attitude towards life and suicidal drinking habits are what sticks in one's mind.

Jesper Christensen is masterful in portraying the misery, the shame and hopelessness that go with alcoholism. The drinking bout in which he cries while lying wounded in his apartment is gut wrenching to watch.

Not an easy film to watch but definitely worthwhile if one has the stomach for it.