The Way to Mandalay

The film tells the life of the Danish musician John Mogensen. The account starts in his childhood and follows a career that ran more than twenty years. Mogensen had great success first with a well known vocal group and later on his own. For a long stretch he could be satisfied by nothing and could not tell what he truly loved. Whether it was the music, the stage, the fame or his family stands at the centre of the film. An alcohol dependency lasting years went with him through every period of his life; he died of a heart attack in 1977. The film does not build success as a story of triumph. Rasmus Bjerg and Helle Fagralid appear in Ole Bornedal’s hundred and nine minute Danish film, completed in 2018.