Culture

Directed by Susanne Bier. 4.5/5
Danish drama In a Better World won both the Academy Award and Golden Globe this year for Best Foreign Language Film. With the action divided between small-town Denmark and an African refugee camp, it follows the lives of two children, Christian (William Jøhnk Nielsen) and Elias (Markus Rygaard), and those of their parents. Christian’s mother is dead, Elias’ parents are divorced; they both feel alone. When Christian moves to Elias’ school, he viciously attacks Elias’ bully and is rewarded with Elias’ loyalty.
 
The bully is the first of three adversaries the boys and their parents come up against. The second is a murderer at the refugee camp where Elias’ father Anton (Mikael Persbrandt) works as a doctor. The third, who becomes central to the film, is a thug who hits Elias’ father in front of the two boys.
 
Is it always wrong, Bier asks, to take an eye for an eye? Anton’s justification for being a pacifist seems less and less convincing to both himself and the children as they are brought face-to-face with the evil running rampant throughout society. But it is Christian, consumed by grief for his mother, who begins a brutal retribution, convincing Elias to join him.
 
The story’s particular attraction is that the film’s protagonists are children, with masterful acting by the two young stars. Elias and even more so Christian who are forced to behave like adults, bearing equal weight as their parents, and having to come up with answers to the questions that have been thrust at them all, adult and children alike.
 
You will end up caring for the two boys as much as their own parents do, and caring just as strongly about the troubling questions that the film raises. Watch it; it’s challenging, moving and ultimately uplifting.