Buster's World

A Danish children's film. Buster is eleven. He is moving to a new house with his family. The house has a garden. His father will set up a business there. The school is new. Buster knows nobody. He becomes a target at once. Small, thin, and he speaks oddly. He has one talent. He knows conjuring; sleight of hand, card tricks and small shows. From there the film is a story of defence. Buster gets by on magic. He makes a friend. Ingeborg likes him and watches his tricks. There is a gang at the school. Its leader is always collecting money. Buster does not pay. At the same time there is trouble at home. His father cannot make the business work and the money runs out. His parents argue. Buster hears it and says nothing. What the narrative is interested in is not childhood but coping: its idea is that the boy faces a situation he cannot manage at school or at home, and that conjuring is the only thing he can control. He has a little sister as well. Small, and always behind him. One section takes place at a competition. Buster goes on stage and the trick fails. The narrative does not rescue him there. The ending is small. Nobody becomes a hero and the problems are not fully resolved. Bille August made this early in his career. He made another film with the same writer that year and the two were long spoken of together in Denmark. The source is Bjarne Reuter's book; he wrote the screenplay too. It was shot on location. Mads Bugge Andersen, Katarina Stenbeck and Peter Schrøder are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes Scandinavian children's films and realist stories of growing up. Who it is not for: anyone expecting entertainment; the narrative is quiet, the incidents small, and the tone melancholy throughout.