Country: Denmark
Genre: Drama
Director: Susanne Bier
Year: 2006
Rating: 
TRASH CINEMA RECOMMENDED MOVIE
In terms of plot summary, Brothers resembles the high concept Iraq themed war movies Hollywood has been churning out for some time now. Michael (Ulrich Thomsen), a Dudley-Do-Right kind of guy, is a professional soldier bound for Iraq. He goes missing in action. Michael’s brother Jannik (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), the black sheep of the family, is forced by circumstances to step up to the plate and help out Michael’s wife and kids. But in a twist you can see coming a mile away, Michael turns out to be alive, a prisoner of war.
If this were a Hollywood movie, you would know several things: Jannik and Michael’s wife Sarah (Connie Nielsen) would have an affair, the family would be torn apart by this problem and so on and so on. But Brothers is nothing like that. Writer/director Susanne Bier establishes characters, places them in emotionally explosive situations and then lets the characters tell her what’s going to happen, instead of relying on the standard Syd Field screenwriting manual. This approach yields a marvelous result. Instead of a generic, predigested, focus group massaged drama that feels safe and geriatric, you get a raw cauldron of emotions. People lash out, act in unreasonable ways. The characters refuse to be predictable and tame — in other words, they behave like real human beings, which makes them interesting.
The acting is terrific across the board. As Michael, actor Ulrich Thomsen captures the agony of a fundamentally decent man who has violated his own moral code. Nikolaj Lie Kaas convinces us that his character’s challenges focus him and make him into a better person. Connie Nielsen doesn’t have as showy a part as Michael’s wife, but it’s a finely etched portrait in quiet strength. The child actors register as real children instead of the typical grotesques beloved of Hollywood.
How about filming technique? Director Susanne Bier manages a fair amount of poetry. It was a good twenty minutes into the picture before I even realized she was shooting on high definition video. Normally, for me, video is the kiss of death for a dramatic feature, but Susanne Bier does wonders with the technology. She uses appropriate lenses, her framing is astute, and her camera operator does a good job with the handheld style. It captures a documentary immediacy but doesn’t call attention to itself.
But even with Bier’s skill, the balkiness of high definition video occasionally asserts itself, as when a helicopter is hit by a surface to air missile. Then, all of a sudden, the film looks like crap. Fortunately, Brothers is more focused on emotion than action, so this is not as big a problem as it might be.
Considering how fraught with drama the scenario of Brothers is, you would think that it would have some of the kick of exploitiation cinema, but that’s not true. Brothers always takes the high road and never stoops to sensationalism for it’s own sake. For readers of this site, that is not necessarily a virtue, but I have to give Brothers it’s due. It’s a powerful drama, beautifully acted and skillfully written and directed by Susanne Bier.