Few creative partnerships in contemporary Nordic cinema are as endearing and entertaining as the one between writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen – one of Denmark’s most sought after screenwriters on other people’s projects as well – and actors Mads Mikkelsen and Nikolaj Lie Kaas, via dark comedy blended with other genres. Their sixth collaboration, The Last Viking, premiered in Venice and will most likely appeal to fans of Jensen’s work and of Mikkelsen’s Danish career, far removed from the villain typecasting that tends to occur for him in Hollywood (most recently in Mufasa: The Lion King).
Unusually, the power dynamic – so to speak – is reversed, with Kaas playing the lead. He stars as Anker, a man prone to violence and a questionable relationship with the law. Shortly before he’s arrested for robbery, he hides the loot in a locker and gives the key to his brother Manfred (Mikkelsen), with specific instructions to retrieve the bag with the money – 41 million Danish kroner, roughly 6.5 million dollars – and bury it in the woods near their mother’s house in the countryside.
Fifteen years pass, and Anker gets released from prison. He wants to retrieve the money, not least because his former accomplice would like a share and is very violently persuasive about it, but there’s a snag: Manfred, whose mental health was fragile to begin with, is suffering from a dissociative disorder and can’t remember where exactly it is. And so the two brothers travel to their childhood home, now an Airbnb, hoping to unlock that crucial memory. Although perhaps it’s not just Manfred – who now wants to be addressed as “John” – who needs to remember stuff before it’s too late…
While some may question the choice to frame some of the film’s broader comedic moments around mental illness, Jensen approaches the matter with empathy, even when he asks Mikkelsen – clearly relishing the opportunity to play a layered supporting part that taps into many facets of his artistic persona – to jump out of windows for the sake of (darkly calibrated) laughs. Especially since it soon becomes apparent the jokes – many of them revolving around music – are part of a more intricate meditation on the nature of identity in general, and how it can be shaped by trauma.
It’s also a film about family, so it’s no surprise the director chose to surround himself with frequent collaborators, particularly in terms of casting: besides Mikkelsen and Kaas, everyone else is, for the most part, someone who has worked with Jensen at least once before (Nicolas Bro, who plays the villainous Flemming, has been in all but one of his previous features). And there’s a clear joy on the filmmaker’s part in mixing and matching the energies of seasoned performers like Søren Malling and Sofie Gråbøl, who gamely contribute to the film’s delightfully heightened reality.
Said reality is not always as well balanced as it is in Jensen’s past work (the tonal versatility takes a bit to find its feet while the plot settles in, especially given a prologue that at first glance is a bit at odds with the rest of the film), but once all the elements are properly in place, the darkly humorous stylings paired with chaotically precise action beats, assembled like an oddly charming IKEA product, are yet another enthralling trip to the weirder (cinematic) parts of Denmark.
Director & Screenwriter: Anders Thomas Jensen
Cast: Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Mads Mikkelsen, Sofie Gråbøl, Søren Malling, Bodil Jørgensen, Lars Brygmann, Kardo Razzazi, Nicolas Bro, Peter Düring
Producers: Sisse Graum Jørgensen, Sidsel Hybshmann, Lizette Jonjic
Cinematography: Sebastian Blenkov
Production design: Nikolaj Danielsen
Costume design: Rikke Simonsen
Music: Jeppe Kaas
Sound: Eddie Simonsen
Production company: Zentropa
World sales: TrustNordisk
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition)
In Danish, Swedish
116 minutes
