Reconstruction

In Copenhagen a photographer, Alex, sees a woman called Aimée on the metro and follows her. He leaves his girlfriend and spends the night with her. The next morning the world has shifted: the door to his building is gone, his father does not know him, his friends do not know who he is. Aimée's husband is a novelist, and may be writing all of it. Christoffer Boe directs, in his first feature. Nikolaj Lie Kaas plays Alex, and Maria Bonnevie plays both Aimée and Alex's girlfriend, a doubling that is part of the film's idea. It won the Caméra d'Or at Cannes in 2003. Boe's method is to let the narrative expose its own construction. A voice tells you at the outset that this is invented, scenes repeat, the same moment is played again to a different outcome. The film is not interested in love so much as in the impossibility of narrating it. Most of it was shot on 16 mm with a handheld camera. The city is recognisable and permanently slightly displaced. Who it is for: viewers who enjoy formal play, Danish cinema, and films thinking about narrative. Who it is not for: anyone who wants the story to hold together internally. It refuses that on purpose, and for some viewers it becomes an empty exercise.