After the Wedding and Prag

After the Wedding is a Danish film by Susanne Bier. It's an Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Film in 2006 (the award was won by Pan's Labyrinth). I got hold of a copy after reading a good review by time.com about it but only got the chance to watch it recently.

Synopsis from its official website:

Far from home, Jacob (Casino Royale villain, Mads Mikkelsen), runs a struggling orphanage in one India’s poorest regions. Desperate to save the orphanage from closure, he returns to Denmark to meet Jorgen (Rolf Lassgard) a wealthy businessman and potential benefactor. Jorgen offers Jacob a seemingly innocent invitation to attend his daughter’s wedding. What appears to be nothing more than a friendly gesture sets in motion an increasingly devastating series of surprises, revelations, and confessions that will forever change their lives. Sweeping, yet entirely intimate, AFTER THE WEDDING is a shattering portrait of a family struggling with the fragility of life and the search for connection, healing, and forgiveness.

The story: man and woman fall in love, fell out of love, parted ways. years later, man goes back to Denmark gets invited to a wedding which turns out to be his daughter's, one who he never even knew existed until that moment. As in woah! there's your conflict!

I memorized a few lines I found to my liking:

1. Jorgen to Helena on her getting the jitters the night before their daughter's wedding: "Anna is young...and she will have many weddings... the first time is always difficult." Can't imagine that happening here in our country. Wouldn't dream of it either.
   
2. Pramod, the little boy in the orphanage to Jacob: "You said you don't like rich people, then why are you going to live with them?... I don't want to live there with you, I like it here (referring to the orphanage in India)." Sometimes, children have a way of making adults appear to be complicating things.
3. Helena and Jacob finally talking about their past: Helena: Why did you not come after me? ... Jaboc:I thought you were coming back. People, expectations and pride.

Great movie and yes, I fell in love with Mads Mikkelsen. LOL! Just enough to google him up and search for any film with him on it. Of course they were hard to come by. But after some dedication, I finally was able to find another movie with him on it, Prag.


PRAG (2006) is a Dogme Film by Ole Christian Madsen. I found an English-translated website sometime in the past but I couldn't locate it anymore so I will just give you the plot summary provided in imdb.com:

Romantic drama: the story of Christoffer and Maja's trip to the city of Prague - a beautiful, aging city, but also a city choked by a rigid and dated eastern-block mentality. PRAG is the story of a distant, ever-absent father who, even after passing away, traumatizes all who have known him. And PRAG is the story of a marriage on the verge of collapse, in which Christoffer wants one thing and Maja another. A story of an old love, constantly transformed; at once, rooted, fragile, vulnerable, forgotten and rediscovered. A marriage where secrets, one after the other, come bursting out of the closet.

The story: man's estranged father died, brings wife along to retrieve his remains in Prag. already knew that wife is seeing another. hopes that the trip will be a good time to save whatever is left of the marriage. confrontation about the affair... no raising of voices...just talking...

Here's some of the lines I got from the movie:

Maja: I saw you today.
Christoffer: I saw you today too. You looked absolutely beautiful.
Maja: Then why didn't you come over to me?
Christoffer: Because that would have ruined it.
(In an earlier scene, Christoffer saw Maja speaking to her cellphone obviously to her lover. Then she saw Christoffer watching her from afar. She stops, wipes the smile off her face and moves away.)

M: Is this a mid-life crisis?
C: I'm 40 and want to do new things. People under 40 always think that's a mid-life crisis.
I wouldn't know, I seem to be in a crisis all the time LOL!

M: Since when are you game for anything?
C: Since I found out you are seeing another man.
And that was delivered in a very matter of fact, no-frills tone. Gosh! that's love!

One review about the movie ended with this statement: For all its sadness of theme, Prag is a strangely beautiful and moving film. And all I can say is it's so so true!

Hail thee Mads Mikkelsen! Anybody knows where I can find Open Hearts?