Twist and Shout

A Danish film set in 1963. Bjørn and Erik are in their last year of school. They have a band; Bjørn plays drums. Both of them listen to the Beatles. Bjørn's family is strict. His father is rule-bound, his mother paralysed, and nobody in the house raises their voice. Erik's home is worse. His father is violent and his mother has been in a hospital for years. From there the film runs two lines together. Bjørn meets a girl. Anna likes him. Erik is with another girl. Kirsten becomes pregnant. At that time it is a crime. Abortion is illegal and the two of them have no options. Kirsten's family finds out. They send her away. Erik's father answers in his own way. What the narrative is interested in is not youth but power: its idea is that neither boy has any say in his own house, and that everything they build outside collapses when they come home. Music is the only way out. The band in rehearsal, on stage, on the radio; the narrative builds those scenes as its brightest places. Bjørn's mother is a quiet layer. She cannot speak and he tells her everything each evening. The father is the hardest thing in it. He does not even shout; he simply states his decision. The ending is not hopeful. Bille August made this alongside another film about childhood the same year; both come from Bjarne Reuter. The film was very popular in Denmark and the music of the period is part of the narrative. Adam Tønsberg, Lars Simonsen, Camilla Søeberg and Ulrikke Juul Bondo are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes Scandinavian youth drama and 1960s period film. Who it is not for: anyone wanting an easy watch; the lines about abortion and domestic violence are hard and the narrative does not soften them.