2000 · drama
The Bench
Directed by Per Fly1h 29m2000
Kaj is a stubborn man with a great deal of pride. The former chef lives in a council flat. He has wasted his life and is now on a council job training scheme for the long-term unemployed, where he refuses to let the foreman of the activation project boss him about. When Kaj's daughter, with whom he has not been in touch for nineteen years, moves into the same council estate on the run from her violent husband, a change comes over Kaj. His initial instinct is to avoid her, but by chance he ends up helping to look after Jonas, her six-year-old son. For the first time for years Kaj need not survive on his own devices. Now he has responsibilities and a family of his own.
Our read: The Bench (2000) reads as a heavy, measured, grounded drama entry — extreme in intensity, intimate in scope, measured in temperature, nihilistic in outlook.
Heavy, measured, extreme drama, grounded in texture. Nihilistic, intimate, measured.
- heavy
- measured
- intense
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How The Bench feels to watch.
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What watching it is actually like.
“You want honest Danish social drama about an alcoholic man and family ties.”
Skip it tonight — You dislike slow realistic depictions of failure and recovery.
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