Mifune . The Boston Phoenix . 03-20-00

Mifune

DIRECTED BY: Søren Kragh-Jacobsen

REVIEWED: 03-20-00

Søren Kragh-Jacobsen's film is the third release from Dogma 95 (after Lars von Trier's Idiots and Thomas Vinterberg's The Celebration), and under the title Mifunes sidste sang ("Mifune's Last Song") it won the Silver Bear (second place, behind Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line) at last year's Berlin Film Festival. Yuppie Kresten (Anders W. Berthelsen) has just settled into Copenhagen life with new bride Claire (Sofie Gråbøl) when the news of his father's death arrives and he has to return to the Danish countryside to care for Rud (Jesper Asholt), his mentally handicapped brother, who's the Toshiro Mifune fan. Naturally Liva (Iben Hjelje), the housekeeper Kresten hires from the city to look after Rud, turns out to be a hooker, and complications, some grim, some amusing, ensue. Kragh-Jacobsen fulfills the official Dogma precepts of simple and straightforward (and the unofficial requirement of quirky), but his film eventually gives in to sentimentality, and no points will be awarded for guessing whether our hero winds up with Claire or Liva.

--Jeffrey Gantz

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