Thursday Movie Picks: Scandanavian Language Movies

Thursday Movie Picks is a weekly event hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. The themes for the year are already posted in her site, so it’s never too late to join in. The last Thursday of the month is dedicated to movies in the Scandinavian language. The Scandinavian region is made up of several countries in northern Europe. I don’t watch a lot of their films so my choices this week is rather limited. A common theme for these films (beside their region) is that I’ve reviewed them all in the blog. Here are my picks for the week:

The Keeper of Lost Causes

Original title: Kvinden i buret

I don’t know what made me pick up the Department Q series books (these are tedious to read – my paperback copy has a tiny font, and the e-book in normal font size is very long) but I loved them and devoured them in a year. This is the film about the first book. It’s about a political figure that was abducted years ago, and the case was re-opened when it was handed to Department Q. Department Q’s purpose is really to just read the case and file, but when something stood out from this case, Detectives Morck and Assad set out to finding the missing woman. It deviated from the books a bit (character-detail wise), but the essence of the whole story was still there. Personally I prefer the second movie (much grittier than the first), but this is a good introduction for the characters and the series. 

The Five Obstructions

Original title: De fem benspaend

Another Danish film, this is a documentary about Lars von Trier posing five challenges to filmmaker Jorgen Leth, and he has to make 5 different films facing the challenge. I thought this was really good – it challenges him to his capabilities as a director, and the final products were amazing. 

Pure

Original title: Till det som ar vackert

Alicia Vikander is super famous now, but she was discovered through her performance here. She plays an opera-loving secretary who gets into an affair with one of the company’s conductors. The plot is very played out, but she was brilliant here. This is one of my favorite performances of hers.