After the Wedding
Director: Susanne Bier. Story: Susanne Bier, Anders Thomas Jensen. Cinematography: Stine Hein, Ole Kragh-Jaconsen, Morten Søborg, Otto Stenov. Film editing: Pernille Bech Christensen, Morten Højbjerg. Production design: Søren Skjær. Music: Johan Söderqvist. Producer: Sisse Graum Jørgensen. With: Mads Mikkelsen, Rolf Lassgård, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Stine Fischer Christensen, Christian Tafdrup, Frederik Gullits Ernst, Kristian Gullits Ernst, Ida Dwinger, Mona Malm, Neel Røholt, Anne Fletting, Henrik Larsen, Niels Anders Thom, Henning Jensen, Thomas Voss. Denmark/Sweden. In Danish/Swedish/Hindi/English. 120 min. Original title: Efter brylluppet. 2006.
The story begins in India, where reformed alcoholic Jacob has put his dissolute past behind him and dedicated himself to feeding and sheltering homeless kids. Visiting his native Denmark to solicit funds from Jørgen, a wealthy businessman, he’s pressured into attending the wedding of his benefactor’s daughter, who’s actually his own daughter from a long-ago fling with the woman who became Jørgen’s wife. Rapidly figuring out the situation, Jørgen decides to welcome Jacob into the family, but his wealthy-businessman arrogance comes into play again as he offers Jacob a handsome aid package on the condition that Jacob relocate to Denmark and run his charity from afar. Then we discover that a secret tragedy lies behind Jørgen’s seemingly self-important behavior. The movie starts well, easing us gradually into the initially engrossing plot; but it lasts too long for what the story has to say, running on near-empty for the last half-hour or so.
– David Sterritt
*
Black Snake Moan
Director: Craig Brewer. Screenplay: Craig Brewer. Cinematography: Amy Vincent. Film editing: Billy Fox. Production design: Keith Brian Burns. Art direction: Liba Daniels. Music: Scott Bomar. Producers: Stephanie Allain, John Singleton. With: Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Ricci, Justin Timberlake, S. Epatha Merkerson, John Cothran Jr., David Banner, Michael Raymond-James, Adriane Lenox, Kim Richards, Neimus K. Williams, Leonard L. Thomas, Ruby Wilson, Claude Phillips, Amy Levere, Clare Grant. USA. 116 min. 2006.
A wild-at-heart white woman wanders into the clutches of a poor black musician who cleans her up, tends her wounds, chains her to a radiator in his house, and announces that he and Jesus are going to make her a decent Christian no matter what it takes. Brewer, of Hustle & Flow fame, isn’t a strong enough storyteller to make his material as memorable as it might have been, and he can’t resist capitalizing on unsubtle overtones of bondage porn. Ricci and Jackson are terrific, though, and there’s some spicy blues music along the way. – David Sterritt
*
Crazy Love
Director: Dan Klores. Codirector: Fisher Stevens. Writer: Dan Klores. Cinematography: Wolfgang Held, Claudia Raschke-Robinson. Film editing: David Zieff. Music: Douglas J. Cuomo. Producers: Dan Klores, Fisher Stevens. With: Burt Pugach, Linda Riss, Jimmy Breslin, Marvin Scott, Berry Stainback, Dr. Norman Ackerman, Marvyn Kornberg, Andrea Peyser, Bob Janoff, Sylvia Hoffman, Rita Kessler, Joyce Gurriero, Janet Pomerantz, Rusty Goldberg, Margaret Powers. USA. 93 min. 2007.
Documentary. The account starts in 1957, when Burton Pugach was raised in the Bronx by a mother who beat him up if he didn’t eat enough dinner. He went to law school, earned a pile of money as a bottom-feeding ambulance chaser, and got married. Then he met a young woman named Linda Riss and became obsessed with her, promising to get divorced so they could marry. (Spoilers ahead.) She left him when he failed to follow through, whereupon he arranged to have acid thrown in her eyes, disfiguring and eventually blinding her. They met again when he got out of prison for the crime, and quick as a flash he proposed, she said yes, and they headed into middle age as a lawfully wedded couple. Still crazy after all these years! The movie is fascinating to watch, and the less you know about it in advance (too bad you’ve read this far) the more its twists and turns will amaze you. It has a few major flaws, though. There’s no meaningful commentary by psychologists or sociologists who could shed clinical light on the picture; most of the people interviewed are unidentified except by name; the filmmakers don’t bother to say what happened to the African-American men who shared culpability for the awful crime; and the movie resorts to a simple trick—showing the main characters in separate shots until the movie’s last few minutes—to build uncertainty about the later stages of their relationship. Nor does the movie delve very deeply into Pugach’s motivations, which were probably rooted in the days when his mother beat him up. Still and all, this is a yarn you won’t forget in a hurry. And it isn’t every day you get to hear “Tequila” performed by the Arthur Murray Orchestra. – David Sterritt
