Men & Chicken

Anders Thomas Jensen's black comedy, in which strangeness is not a threshold but the ground the film stands on. After their father's death, Gabriel and Elias find a tape. On it the man tells the truth: neither of them is his son, and their real father lives on a remote island to the south. The brothers go there and find three more half-brothers. All five carry the same facial deformity, all live in an abandoned sanatorium, and the house is full of animals. The rest of the film is these five men trying to get along: sleeping in one room, taking turns to cook, slapping each other constantly. Underneath sits a question, and the film does not hide it to the end: why were these men born this way. Mads Mikkelsen plays Elias, a part that is the opposite of his known image; David Dencik and Nikolaj Lie Kaas are among the brothers. Exactly right for anyone who likes the Danish tradition of absurdist comedy and humour that makes you uncomfortable. Before you watch, know this: the violence runs on cartoon logic while the subject is a scientific abuse, and the film keeps both in the same scene.