Beauty and the Beast

Nils Malmros leaves sixteen-year-old Mette alone at home with her father in Århus. The mother is in hospital, pregnant, and the two of them are painting the room for the coming baby. When Mette begins taking an interest in boys, her father can accept neither her growing up nor his own jealousy, and feels steadily pushed aside. Malmros wrote the part for Line Arlien-Søborg straight after Kundskabens træ, and Jesper Klein carries the beast of the title without any strain at all. The film neither excuses the father nor turns him into a creature; it simply watches, patiently, how an adult can be unfair to his own child. Both leads won Bodil and Robert awards in 1984, and the film took the Robert for best Danish film the same year.