Bier hits three birds with one stone.
Brothers is a full-fledged examination of what occurs when destiny decides to seize control of a person’s fate. Part of an up-and-coming generation of Danish female auteurs, co-writer and director Susanne Bier offers up a three-way piercing exploration of the depths of displaced human emotions with a profound study of how when inner psychological wounds are left untreated can lead to an abyss of aggression and regression with those we love most.
Based on Anders Thomas Jensen’s screenplay, the drama takes a normal, happy family unit and throws them into the realities of a remote, yet known international newspaper headline. The patriarch – a disciplined UN military (Ulrich Thomsen – The Celebration) is sent of an ill-fated convoy. While the viewer has access to the psychological horrors of a POW, his fate remains unknown to his wife (Nielsen – Demonlover) who becomes a widow by logic, but the support of the younger, irresponsible black-sheep of the family brother-in law Jannik (Nikolaj Lie Kaas – The Green Butchers) lifts the burden of loss. Not surprisingly, Michael’s return from the grave is not as euphoric as one might think.
Thematically the film focuses on this notion of control – each of these victims lack the mental strength or fall victim to desire to love in their weakened states. Although, the film may have benefited from a little more subtlety – some narrative items are little too spelled out, Bier’s talent is in unearthing a full range of emotions with the appropriate sincerity that is hardly honestly expressed in cinema. Aside from the Deer Hunter portion of the plot, the film’s landmark kitchen sequence of explosive destruction and its aftermath give this film a powerful emotional stroke.
Shot in high definition video, this takes the regular damaged soldier scenario and includes the ripple effects that a person like this has on others. The film also dares to discuss the things we do, which we are not supposed to do, but do anyways. After 2002’s Open Hearts, this feature will certainly be Bier’s international calling card, thanks in part to the political insertion of events in Afghanistan and the presence of three talented leads – surprisingly this is Nielsen’s first role in her native tongue.