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Reviews
Mikkelsen, left, confronts
accusers in The Hunt.
The Hunt
Vinterberg’s best film since Festen is an unsettling psychological drama built
around a harrowing performance from Mads Mikkelsen By David Rooney
Thomas Vinterberg
burst onto the international
scene in 1998
at Cannes with Festen (The
Celebration), a malevolently
comic drama in which the
ugly truth of childhood sexual
abuse poisoned the air and blew
away the happy hypocrisy of a
family reunion. In the Danish
director’s most powerful film
since then, The Hunt, the charge
of pedophilia again plays an
explosive role, only this time the
allegation is based on an impulsive
lie, making it even more
bitter when the fallout spirals
violently out of control. It’s difficult
to watch but riveting.
Propelled by Mads Mikkelsen’s
shattering performance
as the blameless man whose life
threatens to be destroyed, the
film is superbly acted by a cast
that never strikes a false note
or softens the impact with consolatory
sentiment. The same
strengths distinguish Vinterberg
and Tobias Lindholm’s screenplay,
which spins a psychological
horror story rooted at every
step in credible reality.
The film is fundamentally
about the speed at which lies,
gossip and innuendo can become
cemented as fact in public
opinion, and about the disturbing
power of suggestion on young
minds. But it’s also about the
fragile nature of trust in communities
and among friends,
particularly men. It shows how
easily masculine bonds stretching
back years can be broken and
how willingly a band of brothers
can betray one of its own.
Lucas (Mikkelsen) is a
beloved member of one such
group of small-town deer-hunting
buddies, whose rowdy gettogethers
are fueled by booze
and bonhomie. Bouncing back
from the loss of his teaching job
and a messy divorce, he is just
starting to get on his feet again.
He has a new job at a local
kindergarten, begins a promising
relationship with a foreign
co-worker (Alexandra Rapaport),
and although he has had
limited access to his adolescent
son Marcus (Lasse Fogelstrom),
it appears likely the boy will be
moving back in with him.
Mikkelsen imbues Lucas
in his earliest scenes with
such warmth and compassion,
particularly around the
adoring kids at work, that it’s
heart-wrenching to hear the
alarm bells going off when the
drama’s nightmarish chain of
events is set in motion.
Klara (Annika Wedderkopp),
the young daughter of Lucas’
closest friend Theo (Thomas
Bo Larsen), develops an
innocent crush on him. But
31
when her displays of affection
overstep normal boundaries,
Lucas gently draws a line,
which she misinterprets as
a hurtful rebuff. Her imagination
sparked by a pornographic
image glimpsed on her
brother’s iPad, Klara responds
to the concerned questions of
kindergarten supervisor Grethe
(Susse Wold) by saying that
Lucas exposed himself to her.
The film stirs indignation
via the blind ineptitude with
which Grethe addresses the
allegation, involving a seemingly
under-qualified external
child psychologist, colleagues,
parents and eventually, police.
But what’s even more upsetting
is Lucas’ helplessness to correct
the misinformation, given that
Grethe refuses to tell him the
source or even the exact nature
of the charge. Parents advised
to look for signs of trauma in
their children suddenly begin
seeing them everywhere.
While witch-hunt stories
like this one peaked in the news
some 20 years ago and have
been dramatized on TV and film
before, The Hunt is still shocking.
That’s thanks to the skill with
which Vinterberg, Lindholm and
editors Anne Osterud and Janus
Billeskov Jansen modulate the
crescendo of paranoia, judgment
and injustice.
Adding to the sorrow at
the drama’s heart is Klara’s
confusion. Even when she
volunteers that it was a silly
thing she made up, her mother
(Anne Louise Hassing) muddies
her grasp of the situation
with leading talk about
the repression of unpleasant
memories. However, any sense
of individual responsibility
remains secondary to the sober
acknowledgement of the role
played by societal conditioning
and adults’ instinctive belief
in the innocence of children.
Following a painful resolution,
the film’s chilling coda makes
it clear that the damage can
never really be undone.
The elegantly framed
widescreen compositions of cinematographer
Charlotte Bruus
Christensen maintain a certain
detachment in the establishing
action, bearing witness to the
awful events with distressing
clarity. And Nikolaj Egelund’s
delicate music is used with
economy to punctuate the twomonth
ordeal, never to stoke
tension artificially as a heavier
hand might have done.
But while it’s crisply executed,
The Hunt is very much an
actor-driven film. As the child
who triggers the maelstrom and
then gets bundled out of its way,
Wedderkopp gives a performance
of uncanny naturalness
and vulnerability, while as the
teenager caught in the crossfire,
Fogelstrom is equally good.
Intense, wounded, wrung
out and pushed to the brink of
insanity, Mikkelsen’s Lucas is
a devastating characterization,
all the more so because his outbursts
of rage are so infrequent.
Continuing on from his impressive
work in A Royal Affair,
which premiered in Berlin,
this is a tremendous year for
the Danish actor, best known
to international audiences as
007’s nemesis in Casino Royale.
In Competition
Director Thomas Vinterberg
Production companies
Zentropa Entertainments, Film I
Vast, Zentropa Int’l Sweden
Cast Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas
Bo Larsen, Annika Wedderkopp,
Lasse Fogelstrom, Susse Wold,
Anne Louise Hassing
Sales TrustNordisk
day 6_reviews_A.indd 1 5/20/12 7:56 PM