The Hunt

My first look at one of this year's Best Foreign Language Film is The Hunt, from Denmark. Directed by Thomas Vinterberg, I happened to see it, coincidentally, on the day I wrote my last post, about the accusations of child abuse about Woody Allen. The Hunt is about a man falsely accused of just such a crime, and how it ruins his life.

Vinterberg, one of the founders of Dogme 95, makes an interesting choice. We know from the get-go that Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen), who works at a kindergarten, is not guilty. If the film had been more ambiguous about this it would have been a totally different experience. As such, I watched the film first with dread and then with stomach-clenching horror at what he has to endure.

Children are subject to all sorts of evils in this world, but this reminds us that everyone is entitled to a presumption of innocence. Mikkelsen is recently divorced and seeking custody of his son. He was a teacher, but has taken a step down working for the kindergarten. He is very popular with the kids, particularly Klara, who is the daughter of his best friend (Thomas Bo Larsen). When he admonishes Klara for kissing him on the mouth and giving him a gift, she strikes back by telling the director of the kindergarten that Mikkelsen showed her his penis. She is armed with extra information when her brother showed her some pornography on the one Internet.

Everyone is inclined to believe Klara. The kindergarten director says that children never lie, an unbelievable statement. A man questions her, but asks her leading questions, such as "When did Lucas first show you his penis?" The entire community turns against him, even the local grocery, who refuses to serve him. His teenage son comes to visit and supports him, as done one of his friends, but he is a beaten man.

Like many of Hitchcock's films about the wrongly-accused, The Hunt crackles with energy and palpable tension. It's one of those movies that you almost talk back to, exhorting people to get real (Klara tells her mother that she was lying, but the mother rejects this). Then again, we may realize that if we were those people, we'd probably believe the girl, too.

Vinterberg's direction is crisp, and the script is heavy with metaphors. The title refers to the ritualistic hunt that Mikkelsen and his men go in, but it could also refer to a witch hunt. And early in the film, Mikkelsen enters the playground of the school, where he is playfully attacked by the kids. "There are too many of you," he says, fighting them off, which is exactly what he will have to do later in the film.

Mikkelsen gives a bravura performance, full of bottled, and then uncorked, rage (he won the Cannes Film Festival prize as Best Actor). As Klara, Annika Wedderkopp is remarkably poised. In the making of segment, Vinterberg recounts that she did not everything about the film, but just enough to get her through the part.