A Funny Man

Dirch Passer became the most loved comedian in Denmark and found himself entirely alone once he got there. Audiences want him to make them laugh; he wants to be taken seriously. The double act he built with his stage partner breaks up, and when he takes a dramatic role in Of Mice and Men the house laughs at his first line. After that his Lennie becomes a running joke, and so, as far as he is concerned, does his life. Martin Zandvliet opens on the glossy surface of the sixties and then shows what is under it. Nikolaj Lie Kaas plays him without ever slipping into impersonation. Passer died on stage at Tivoli in 1980, in his clown costume, and the film looks back knowing exactly where it is going.