a Danish Zone

[Pauk]

I saw recently a Danish film called Allegro (directed by Christoffer Boe). It is a story about a pianist Zetterstrøm (Ulrich Thomsen), who manages to forget all his past in Denmark (his childhood and his love) after a traumatic experience and lives in USA. There appears though a Zone in the middle of Copenhagen, where Zetterstrøm once lived, and one day he is approached by a man who tells him that his memories had been abducted and kept in the Zone. Zetterstrøm goes to Denmark to give a concert 'in praise of the Zone' and receives an invitation to enter the anomaly. The Zone is shown as a territory surrounded by an invisible wall, that flickers and blinks as if it was a video projection, showing the area as it looked before the Zone appeared. Zetterstrøm is the only one who can enter the place via a secret portal.
I find it interesting that this Danish Zone is a product of and consists of main person's feelings and memories, moreover, as Zetterstrøm moves around the place, it demonstrates the same features as those which are called 'traps' in Stalker's Zone.
Has anyone by chance seen this film?

[The Ferret]

Malishas... finally there's a "STALKER" rip-off in the world! And it even worths the watch and the praise!


THE TRAILER: www.twitchfilm.net/archives/003212.html


User Comment from IMDB (BIG SPOILERS):

"4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful:-
Original, complex and compelling, 1 October 2005

Author: tariboventola from Århus, DK

Following the Cannes Camera D'or winner, "Reconstruction", Danish director Christopher Boe has made a new unusual film: Allegro.

Filmed primarily with hand-held camera, the picture is almost as gritty as some Dogme 95-movies. The camera is slightly shaky and keeps fast-zooming at faces all through the movie: Faces are important. Looks are important. Ulrich Thompsen (The Celebration) is the main character, the pianist Zetterstrøm, who is the person, around whom the film centers. Zetterstrøm is not really living life and playing piano, rather he is playing piano and living life through his piano. He is the archetypical introverted person, who lives in his own world, keeping distance to other people and of course love. A chance meeting with a beautiful woman, played by Danish supermodel Helena Christensen, alters his life, but his unbalanced self cannot truly recognize or accept his own feelings, so they part.

10 years later - the movies starts. A voice-over by Henning Moritzen (The Celebration, Cries and Whispers) tells us that Zetterstrøm has forgotten about his past, that he is even more secluded from the world of feelings and drawn into perfecting his piano playing. The Voice-over is also a character in the film - Tom, in all probability some fictitious person made by Zetterstrøms own mind.

Tom wants Zetterstrøm to retrieve his lost memory. This is the central quest of the film.

Materialized in the middle of Copenhagen is The Zone - the area, where Zetterstrøm and the woman parted has now turned into a deserted zone, where people can't enter. The "walls" of the zone can't be entered. The Zone is a picture - something you can see, but not touch. The Zone is Zetterstrøms memory, his past.

An abstract story now unfolds, as Tom and his assistant invites Zetterstrøm back to Copenhagen, where he gets the chance of entering The Zone. On a semi-realistic level, Zetterstrøm returns to Copenhagen to play a concert - and this mix of abstraction, materialized psychology and realism continues throughout. --

The voice-over is constantly guiding us, but as it is also analyzing the immediate situation for us, we as audience have to think ahead of it; There's more to the film, than the voice-over tells us. The mood is very dark, very abstract - the intro somehow reminds of Bergmans "Persona", although not as Freudian in it's symbols - and the film seems very focused. It has a nostalgic feeling to it - Zetterstrøm wandering alone in a secluded world, as walking in his own self. The symbols are everywhere - symbols of past, symbols of love, symbols of frame of mind. It's very scary, although funny at certain points - the script is done by Danish stand-up comedian and quite intelligent-wise gifted, Michael Wulff (who worked with Boe on an Art House comedy-series called "Kissmeyer Basic"). The humour may be thought of as getting the mood in imbalance one or two times, but otherwise it's quite nice.

The acting is superb. Ulrich is playing his favourite kind of role - introverted, mostly quiet and Bill Murray-like, sometimes shouting. His play opposite Helena, making her debut on the big screen, is fabulous - she really has the perfect eyes and voice for this dream-like character. Also Henning Moritzen is perfect as The all-knowing guy, who is teasing us.

Not flawless, but this movie is yet an interesting film from the new major upcoming danish film director, Christopher Boe.

Highly Recommended: 8/10"


LINKS:

www.imdb.com/title/tt0424789/

www.variety.com/review/VE1117928101?categoryid=31&cs=1

filmnet.dk/bioreview.asp?mode=teather_read&id=832 - in Danish

www.ahot.dk/film/film.asp?filmid=519 - in Danish

www.moviemeter.nl/film/31140 - in Danish

www.filmteatret.dk/film03.htm - in Danish

www.twitchfilm.net/archives/002397.html - "STALKER" mentioned here!

www.dfi.dk/sitemod/moduler/index_english.asp?pid=24060 - "STALKER" mentioned here!

www.cinemavvenire.it/magazine/articoli.asp?IDartic=4018 - In Italian - "STALKER" mentioned here!

[Pauk]

Bravo. Great reaction.. I went to see the film because of the Zone, but in newspaper articles here in Denmark Tarkovsky was never mentioned.
Ah, perhaps it's too good that director acknowledges the influence so easily.......

[The Ferret]

Actually, I really don't know if the movie is available here in Italy...

There's another zone (this time called 'Intrusion Zone' - a space-time continuum anomaly which basically works as "warp" convoy for alien forms of life and spreads disrupted order into the fabric of the universe) featured in the beautiful movie "IMMORTAL (AD VITAM)" (2004):

www.imdb.com/title/tt0314063/

Of course, wherever there's a "Zone" then there's a "Stalker" - in this movie he's an alien called 'John' who uses to cover his body in a black suit to protect himself from light.

There's even a very funny reference to Tarkovsky: one of the lead characters, Nikopol, asks for a 'Tarkovskaia vodka'.