Mads Mikkelsen in absurd black comedy

Mads Mikkelsen brings an inexpressive appearance and great grace to his role as a psychologically problematic man named Manfred, who insists on being called John because it is John Lennon. Call it Manfred and he will jump abruptly from a moving car or submerged through a window, and although it is quite beaten at the end of The last Vikingo, It always recovers.

That is just one of the absurd threads in the latest Anders Thomas Jensen movie, Known for dark comedies, including the history of revenge Justice riders (2020) and the craziest Men and chicken (2015). This new film is a very black comedy that is also a story of robberies with bloody violence, along with a little slap and a family ties theme. Few directors could juggle with genres and navigate changes in tone as fluidly as Jensen here. On paper, none of that should work, including the risky idea that several comic characters have been diagnosed with psychiatric disorders, but this unlikely film is consistently entertaining, strange and, ultimately, moving.

Mikkelsen and Nikolaj Lie Kaas, who have appeared in Jensen’s previous films, play the brothers here. In a fast configuration sequence, Anker (Kaaas) commits a robbery and hides stored money. When the police approach, he asks Dublic Manfred to hide the key where he used to have birthday parties when he was a child. Cut 15 years later. Anker is on probation, Manfred believes he is a beatle and refuses to say where he hid the key.

That begins a series of ridiculous events and characters, all dyes and expelled from the comedy of their direct delivery. Anker leads Manfred to what his family home used to be and now, conveniently for the film, an Airbnb. Among the cast of absurd characters, Sofie Grabol and Soren Malling are Margrethe and Werner, the couple of disputes that Airbnb possesses. Margrethe persists at thinking that Anker is attracted to her despite the fact that there is no evidence to support him. Anker continues to dig in the forest around the isolated house: the scenic location is beautiful and calm, an ordered contrast with the human chaos, supposedly looking for worms, although it has a metal detector.

More characters appear there, including Lothar (Lars Brygmann), the doctor who treated Manfred/John after jumping from the car on the way to the house and that diagnosed it with dissociative identity disorder. It brings two psychiatric patients who has discharged from a hospital, with plans to create a Beatles cover band to get Manfred out of their illusion. It is quite clear that Jensen does not make fun of anyone’s mental state, but is accepting them and points out that each of us, from Margrethe to the doctor and most of the rest of the world, is a bit off.

Mikkelsen’s perfectly balanced performance is the key to maintaining that tone of understanding and empathy. Manfred can have a silly blonde hair, but Mikkelsen portrays him as strong will and dedicated to his brother, with a decent rigidity that is moving and unattimmed. The gap does not take place in the world of Jensen.

Kaas is also remarkable in a difficult role like Stern Anker, which is sometimes simply bad. He refuses to believe that his brother is not doing an act by claiming to be John. It could have been unpleasant, but Kaas always allows us to see how deeply protective is Anker de Manfred. It is its great redemptive characteristic.

The turn of violence occurs without problems when criminals looking for Anker and their money appear, after trying to overcome the information of Anker and Manfred’s sister, Freja. In the nuanced performance of Bodil Jorgensen, Freja looks nervous and fragile, but turns out to be as hard as they arrive.

At all times, Jensen inserts flashbacks to the childhood of the brothers, when Manfred believed he was a Viking and was intimidated by using a helmet for school. There are still some runes that carved on the property. In the course of the film, flashbacks reveal that their childhood history became harder and harder, already measure that these scenes accumulate the issue of family loyalty arise even more strongly.

In a seemingly dilemma element that is actually crucial, the film begins and ends with a animated sequence, a story of a king of a book of stories whose son lost an arm and that ordered everyone else in the kingdom to lose an arm to do things the same for the weakest of them. Enigmatic at first and immediately forgotten, add resonance to the whole film for when we return to this story and learn its source.

The last Vikingo It really is what two loving brothers will do for each other. His human message is powerful even though it comes in the unconventional package of this cheerful, violent but completely successful dark comedy.