IMDb user comments for
Brødre (2004) More at IMDbPro »

Filter:

Best Chronological Prolific Authors Loved It Hated It Hide Spoilers:

Page 1 of 4:

[1] [2] [3] [4]

Index

34 comments in total

---

29 out of 32 people found the following comment useful :-
A brilliant depiction of the impact of war on families, 25 June 2005

Author: doctorow from Raleigh, NC

Best picture we've seen in 2005. Why can't Hollywood make movies like this any more? Great cast, great direction, dialogue perfectly written comes through with power even in Danish with English subtitles! Connie Nielsen is in a league with Myrl Streep as an actress. The portrayal of the rough and tumble relationship of the brothers is so real it seems alive. Make sure you see this movie either in the theatres or on DVD. Nielsen is gorgeous but realistically portrays a housewife. The parents are classic Scandinavians, stolid and down to earth. Two little girls are played with zest and great energy. And the brothers, are quite believable as brothers. If you are interested in serious cinema and grown up movies "Brothers" should be on your list.

---

23 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
Parallel stories, synchronized storytelling, 11 July 2005

Author: Diand from Amsterdam

It's rare to find a movie with a meaningful, political context that is also good drama. Brødre / Brothers has two interwoven story lines: one about the relationship between two brothers, the other about the difference between comfortable Western civilizations sending out soldiers to various missions and the actual war zones. These stories mirror each other and both brothers change roles during the movie: One starts in prison, the other ends up there; one is a family man; the other takes over this role after his brother's death. There is a nice ending, but I find that the only element not fitting the overall structure.

I like this also because it is well edited. Synchronization of images is used to tell the story of Michael in Afghanistan and Sarah in Denmark. Frequently a shot of Afghanistan is shown and directly followed by the same shot in Denmark: looking at a road, from a bus or car, etc.

Initially rhythm is established through a central 'Afghan' theme song. Once the characters are established in our minds, the acting takes over. I'm still wondering why Danish actors (and Scandinavian actors in general) are so good in what they do: Is that a compulsory subject in primary school there because even the children act so unbelievably natural.

The ethical dilemmas facing soldiers are well presented. Michael first has to demonstrate how a launcher works, knowing it will be used against his own people. Then comes the ultimate decision. The traumas he faces are real and reminded me of actual, similar stories of soldiers returning from Bosnia, Afghanistan or Iraq.

Susanne Bier has come out of the Dogme-movement as one of the better directors. In a world with not that many (talented) female directors she is someone to be cherished.

---

25 out of 30 people found the following comment useful :-
Surviving a war, but losing the peace., 27 May 2005

Author: jotix100 from New York

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Susanne Bier's "Brothers" is a gripping account of the relationship between two brothers. Ms. Bier, a distinguished director, presents in this new venture a psychological study in the mind of one man who has been scarred by events beyond his control. The screen play by Ms. Bier and Andreas Thomas Jensen is one of the most powerful things that have come out from the Danish cinema.

If you haven't seen the film, please stop reading here.

At the beginning of the movie, we are shown Michael who is picking up a prisoner from a jail. It turns out that the released man is none other than Jannik, his own brother. It's clear, at the outset, these two men are as different as oil and vinegar. They quarrel along the way and Jannik gets out and walks into a field to get away from his brother.

Michael, a major in the army, is for all we see, happily married. He is preparing to go to Afghanistan with his unit. His pretty wife, Sarah, and his two young daughters are going to be left on their own, but everything seems to be under control.

When Michael's helicopter is shot from the sky by enemy fire, he is reported as dead, something that affects Sarah deeply. Jannik, the distant brother in law, suddenly gravitates toward Sarah and her children. Sarah, in her grief over her loss, becomes closer to this man.

Michael, on the other hand, hasn't died. We see him as he is taken to an enemy camp where he is seen sharing a cell with another Danish soldier. There's hardly any contact between captors and prisoners. The two men bond, but the other man is seen weakening because of he senses they will be killed. Death arrives, in a devastating sequence that has to be one of the most heart wrenching thing in a film in recent memory.

As the camp is liberated, Michael is repatriated. Sarah knows something has happened to her husband, who never talks about the tragedy at the camp. What's more, one watches in horror as Michael begins to spiral out of control. His guilt finally explodes in a rage, even Jannik, can stop. Michael, in his state, suspects about his own wife's infidelity with his brother. He accuses her of betrayal, something his older daughter, Natalia, seems to be convinced happened between her mother and uncle. Michael, being so tormented, breaks down and begins trashing the house. Jannik comes to help and the brothers have an almost fatal confrontation. At the end we watch as Sarah visits Michael in jail and how he breaks down and tell her the horrible secret he has been hiding all along.

Ulrich Thomsen is the best thing in the film! Mr. Thomsen's performance is one of the most complex we have watched in a while. Mr. Thomsen makes Michael come alive in front of our eyes. Connie Nielsen, an actress that has worked extensively in the American cinema makes also quite an impression with her portrayal of Sarah, the wife that has to deal with the false death of her husband, only to find out he is alive. The other good performance is by Nikolaj Lil Kaas, who plays Jannik, the problem brother. All the supporting players make a contribution to the film.

Ms. Bier shows she can hold her own against much more accomplished directors.

---

13 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
Fragility and Strength: A Study of Family, 30 March 2007

Author: gradyharp from United States

'Brødre'('Brothers') is a remarkable film from Denmark written by Anders Thomas Jensen and Susanne Bier who also directs this microscopic examination of the intricacies of family bonding, the significance of the blood ties between brothers, and the effects of one of the brutal realities of war on every individual member of a family. It is a tense drama made palpable by some phenomenal acting and direction.

Michael (Ulrich Thomsen) and Jannik (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) are polar opposites as brothers: Michael is his father's dream, a man who is committed to his family, his beautiful and devoted wife Sarah (Connie Nielsen) with whom he has two daughters, while Jannik is a carefree drifter who drinks too much and refuses to have the stable life his parents expect of him. Michael is off to war in Afghanistan and is in a tragic helicopter accident and reported as dead. When Sarah is informed her world crumbles, as does the mental state of her father-in-law. Jannik hears the news while drunk but slowly awakens to the awful reality that his brother is gone and his sister-in-law and nieces need the support he has never been able to muster.

In Afghanistan we discover that Sarah's inclination that Michael is not really dead is true: Michael has been captured by the Taliban and the experience as a prisoner changes him indelibly, breaking his shell of perfection and he becomes vulnerable and fragile. When Michael returns home to the surprise of everyone the dynamics that have reversed between the family and Jannik and the force that bonds Michael and Jannik is challenged and we are left to examine the fallout.

The script in Danish is supplemented with excellent subtitles in English, but one wonders if the words are even necessary - so fine is the acting of every actor involved. Connie Nielson is a major force in cinema today, a brilliant actor whose spectrum of dynamics appears endless. Both Thomsen and Kaas are equally fine in their difficult roles. This is a superlative work, a psychological drama that strikes chords of familiarity on many levels. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp

---

16 out of 22 people found the following comment useful :-
Fascinating Well Played and Well Cut Drama, 19 August 2004

Author: ksj-2 from Roskilde, Denmark

The movie is filmed mostly with hand held camera, and the technical quality is not the best. I am normally not a fan of these so called "Dogme" movies, but it gives the opportunity to tell a story with a small budget and without having to waste time on special effects and so on. And what a movie. The actors play so intense and fascinatingly well, that I often sat on the edge of the seat, had "goose bumps"(gaasehud), wept like whipped(graed som pisket). The cutting is also very special and interesting. For instance a scene, where representatives of the military arrives to tell Sarah, that her husband is missing, it is cut right before they tell her the bad news. It gives a good effect. I would also like to welcome Connie Nielsen to the staff of fantastic Danish actors(her first danish movie) and will look forward to possibly/eventually watch/experience her great magic i a Danish movie again. I must write her a fan letter(my first).

---

6 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Damaged goods, 13 June 2005

Author: Chris Knipp from Berkeley, California

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

"Brothers" is about going away to war and coming back damaged and violent. It's also about how the dynamics change not only when a family member is away at war -- one of the brothers is an officer sent to Afghanistan -- but change again even more drastically when he returns. "Brothers" is harrowing to watch. That's its success. It has to disturb. Otherwise it wouldn't have done its job. But I felt so brutalized by this film that I could barely think.

Michael (Ulrich Thomsen), the officer, has a beautiful wife, Sarah (Connie Nielsen) and two pretty little girls, Natalia (Sarah Juel Werner) and Camilla (Rebecca Løgstrup). His parents live nearby -- his mother Else (Solbjørg Højfeldt) steady, young-looking; his father Henning (Bent Mejding) bossy, a bit sullen, a drinker. Michael's younger brother Jannik (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) is handsome in a rough way, drinks, smokes, smiles, likes a laugh. All these people are filled in with a hand-held camera whose vérité edginess links events in Afghanistan with happenings in the family back in Denmark.

The single, jobless Jannik is very much a part of this tight little family but he's a punching bag for the father and Michael because he's always had trouble and is now just out of prison for a bank robbery and assault. He doesn't seem to be looking for a job and both the other men scorn him.

Nevertheless, Jannik's a strong presence at the farewell dinner before Michael, a major in the Danish army, leaves for a second mission to Afghanistan, this time of three months. Jannik's blunt criticisms of the Danes' making war in Afghanistan (which Michael has called "rebuilding a country") are pungent and not unconvincing. Jannik is his own man, and despite his unimpressive life so far, he speaks with confidence and is the more charismatic of the two men. Michael's stolid inwardness isn't very appealing.

Michael seems to have been hoping for an easy tour of duty, but on arrival in Afghanistan he's immediately told he must go and find a young Danish soldier who's just gone missing in enemy territory. That's cut short as quickly when Michael's helicopter is shot down over water and back home he's declared dead. In fact Michael is taken prisoner and something horrible happens. This part of the story, which is cut in briefly between scenes of the family back home, isn't shown in detail; everything happens bang! bang! bang! What we see at the enemy encampment alternates between long periods of silent hopeless waiting and a few moments of intense brutality.

In response to the news that Michael is dead the family regroups as it grieves. The previously careless Jannik finds he deeply misses his brother and reacts by taking on some of Michael's responsibilities, spending time with the two girls, getting a couple of boozy carpenters to help him finish the kitchen Michael left under construction and then continuing to work with them as a team. Michael's absence has made Yannik grow more serious. He still gets drunk -- this is a hard-drinking country -- and runs out of money at the local bar, but this time he calls Sarah at four in the morning and she cheerfully comes and collects him. Jannik and Sarah, who were at loggerheads, are discovering they like each other. Occasionally they kiss, but Jannik resists the temptation to go further. He befriends Natalia and Camilla, who bond with him.

Eventually American troops storm the Islamist encampment in Afghanistan where Michael is held and rescue him. He pretends not to remember what took place there while he was a prisoner but he does. When he is returned to Denmark, he's distant, angry, numb, and inarticulate. He stays bottled up and gradually gets worse. He can't deal with the new dynamics and is sure his wife has betrayed him. This leads to a crisis that as the movie ends may finally be forcing Michael to speak up and get help.

The question is, though, can any help he receives, even if it comes, resolve the residue of Michael's brutal Afghan past now? Michael is complicit in an event for which he might justifiably feel forever guilty. There's no forgiveness in sight as the movie ends, and judging by a shocking declaration from little Natalia, the girls seem to have thrown their allegiance in with YJnnik and turned against their father. When he finally loses it and grows violent, it's scary and life-threatening, and you wonder how this family could ever be safe with him again.

The shattering experience "Brothers" provides is hard to assimilate, and that's probably intentional. The persistent difficulty is that the character of Michael is never really sympathetic, even at the beginning, and hence his transformation is less complex for the viewer than it might have been. Yannik is a more successful creation: the way he is written and acted strikes a nice balance between unreliability and warm appeal from the start. But the movie is not notable for its subtlety. The beautiful Connie Nielsen provides a winning, serene presence that doesn't intrude unduly on the events that swirl around her. If it were not for her and Nikolaj Lie Kaas as Jnnik, there would be no one much to sympathize with.

---

5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Learning to forgive oneself is not easy to do. A hard medicine of a film, thought-provoking and 'soberingly' touching., 1 April 2006

Author: Ruby Liang (ruby_fff) from sf, usa

The Danish film "Brothers" 2004 aka Brodre, w-d by Susanne Bier, is NFE (may not be for everyone). It's about love, a showdown of emotions (the opening music and repeated strains remind me of Sergio Leone's spaghetti western sounding tone). The fact that Michael ('Tour De Force' performance from Ulrich Thomsen of "The Celebration" 1998 aka Festen) keeping his traumatic experience within himself, unable to share with anyone, even his dear wife, is a sobering thought from the post-war effects. He's full of paranoia and is suspicious of everyone around him. It's so hard on him, on family members/children who do not understand what he had gone through that affected his 'warped' emotions and predicament. We cannot weather trauma alone.

As audience, we were privy to what happened to Michael as a prisoner of war - we saw what he had to experience - the circumstance and 'no-choice' decision at the time. His determined will focused on 'must stay alive to see his family and loving wife again' kept him hanging on amidst fear and uncertainty under the atrocities/ravage of war. Learning to forgive oneself - to not blame yourself - is not easy to do. What happen happened under circumstances out of your control and yes, it's easier said than done to say that you mustn't bear the burden or guilt feeling within you. We need the love and support of family/people around us - to be able to trust them that they would listen and understand.

Connie Nielsen as Michael's wife Sarah and Nikolaj Lie Kaas as Michael's younger brother, Jannik, provided an insightful portrait of the triangle of relationships that thrived and yet to survive. In the opening of the film, Bier has on screen along with intriguing graphic imagery and an eye close-up: "I will always love you. That is the only truth that remains. Life is neither right nor wrong, good or bad. But I love you. That's all I know." Towards the end, the graphic imagery and the eye repeated: "Life is neither right nor wrong, good or bad. But I love you. That's all I know."

I caught on Sundance Channel, Dutch documentary filmmaker Heddy Honigmann's "Crazy" 2000, provides 'unpresuming' accounts of how some of the once Dutch soldiers or former workers of UN missions, are dealing with post-war effects by listening or tuning to music as relief. She also did "Good Husband, Dear Son" 2001, a documentary about the surviving women reminiscing their loss of husbands and sons during the 1992 Yugoslav civil war. It's heart-breaking films worth watching.

From the PBS special of Dr. Wayne Dyer's Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling, I heard about Immaculée Ilibagiza's book (collaborated with writer-journalist Steve Erwin) "Left To Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust" - sounds like the act of forgiveness can be easier to practice by learning from her autobiographical account. Couldn't wait to absorb from her shared spirituality.

---

14 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
Great movie - extreme emotions in real people, 25 August 2004

Author: cr-25 from Aarhus, Denmark

A man and his family suffer when he cannot talk about the extreme decisions he has had to make - and live with. Anyone who has friends or relatives that have been in a warzone or war-like conditions will recognize the strong emotions that sometimes take control of people when they come back into their daily realities. It portrays a man who seems to have lost control and brings home a lot of repressed anger, which almost costs him his family. Great movie with a great story and great acting portraying real ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Part of this movies strong emotional impact comes from the use of hand-held camera and lots of wonderful close-ups. Near-life, near-reality, near-death

---

16 out of 28 people found the following comment useful :-
A Danish Take on the Usual Post- War PTS Syndrome, Updated, 31 May 2005

Author: noralee from Queens, NY

"Brothers (Brødre)" is a Danish "Coming Home" crossed with "Deer Hunter" and the novels of Tim O'Brien with the added frisson of Cain vs. Abel, as updated to the war on terrorism in Afghanistan.

While I can understand how this is a new experience for Danes, it could have more impact for someone who has never seen a post-Viet Nam War movie. Otherwise it's like a fairly predictable cable TV movie about post traumatic stress syndrome on a channel that allows four letter words, including as has been done in British television films about returning peacekeepers from the Balkans.

The excellent acting rose above the stereotypes to make it very moving anyway, including very natural child actors who were very un-Dakota Fanning-like.

Nikolaj Lie Kaas is particularly charismatic on screen, even more than he was in "Reconstruction," and should now be in the international pantheon of rugged male stars who play "bad boys" really well, emphasized by portraying brunettes in the land of the blonds. So I give director/co-writer Susanne Bier extra credit for not fulfilling the most obvious direction of the plot, but instead letting tension hang in the air, which is more powerful.

Connie Nielsen, using her native language, has warm and charged chemistry with both her co-stars, but is pretty much just the beautiful wife/mother.

Unfortunately, the distributors didn't spring for American English subtitles so you have to interpret Brit slang as if you're watching BBC America. (I did learn in one instance that the F word sounds pretty much the same in Danish as in English but the subtitles didn't match that sound again so I was wondering what other curse words were being replaced with the fundamental English one.) Some times the translation is just plain confusing; for example, the word "assaulted" seems to have a different connotation than something in the Danish dialog, as a plot point gets confused for a subtitle reader. The translation is particularly a problem during a critical scene where the older girl has an outburst, as it's quizzical how scatological her terms were in Danish as opposed to the English choices to understand how incendiary the scene really is.

The Afghans are uniformly shown with the same level of subtlety as North Vietnamese, let alone Nazis, in prisoner-of-war movies. It is ironically interesting that English is now the lingua franca between freedom fighters everywhere.

The cinematography is beautifully color saturated, but is grainy; perhaps it's blown up from video.

---

3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Sad, in more ways than one., 2 July 2007

Author: Robert J. Maxwell (rmax304823@yahoo.com) from Deming, New Mexico

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

A kind of prune Danish about a happily married couple, Michael and Sarah and their two doll-like daughters, and Michael's reckless and irresponsible younger brother Jannik. Michael, a major in the army, is sent to Afghanistan where his helicopter is shot down, and he's thrown into a prison cell with a Danish comrade. Beaten, and with a gun at his head, Michael is forced to batter to death his cell mate and friend.

Meanwhile, back home, having been informed mistakenly that Michael was dead, Sarah and Jannik come to respect one another and even to be attracted to one another, although nothing goes beyond a tentative but meaningful kiss.

Michael is rescued and returned to his home. But, unable to face his own guilt, he claims never to have seen any other prisoners, and he tells his family nothing about his part in the murder, which, although bloodless, is an especially brutal scene. He's not the guy who left home. He partly blames his family for the killing because it was of them that he was thinking when he bashed his friend's head in. He's irritable, suspicious of Jannik and Sarah, bullies the two kids, strikes his wife, and finally is jailed for smashing his own home. Sarah visits him and orders him to tell of his experiences or she will leave him for good. He tells her, and presumably Michael recovers and the family remains intact. I say "presumably" because this isn't a simple movie with simple answers to questions with labyrinthine implications. The film doesn't endorse the cliché of "getting it off your chest" and putting it behind you. It's not that dumb.

That, basically, is the story. It's a rather long movie considering that it isn't very dense with incident. I kept waiting for boredom to set in but it didn't happen. For one thing, Connie Nielson as Sarah is very attractive. For another, the performances all around were outstanding. Michael, in particular, embodies the sort of compulsive military type who believes that everything should be in order, that individuals should take responsibility for what they do, and that talking solves nothing. John Wayne would have approved. Then, too, I was curious to see just how far this post-traumatic stress would drive Michael. Would he really kill his family? We know he's capable of the most tempestuous emotions, despite his outer reserve, because we have seen him scream with horror when a cocked pistol is pressed against his forehead.

Finally, it gradually came to me that this is a story about people who fought terrorism and are not Americans, although the invasion of Afghanistan and the toppling of the Taliban was a response to the attacks of 9/11. In many Europen cities on September 12th, 2001, major newspapers ran headlines like, "Today We Are All Americans." And some of those nations went to war with us and some of their soldiers died doing it. It has been not quite six years since those horrible initial events. And who would march beside us today? Where are OUR brothers now? What happened? It's a sobering and enlightening movie.

---

---

Page 1 of 4:

[1] [2] [3] [4]

Add another comment

---

Related Links

Plot summary	Ratings	Awards
External reviews	Parents Guide	Official site
Plot keywords	Main details	Your user comments
Your vote history