Movies

In the engrossing documentary Mayor, the camera shadows a mayor as he goes about his daily duties – and he’s the mayor of the Palestinian city Ramallah.  Director David Osit, in just his third feature, has created a masterpiece of cinéma vérité that informs us about human foibles and aspirations, nestled within the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Boy, I enjoyed this movie.  For the last forty years, my day jobs have been in politics and government, especially local government.  Just like every local American elected official, Ramallah Mayor Musa Hadid goes gladhanding among his constituents and hears face-to-face gripes about the equivalent of potholes.

So much of Mayor Hadid’s daily adventures are universal, especially dealing with his own bureaucrats.  He endures a tableful of public servants dithering about whether to name the new fountain at city hall.  He cajoles a hapless staffer to just get him a radio so he can listen to the news. He reams out a manager who ignores a sewage overflow. And, of course, between ribbon cuttings, he is beset by shady contractors.

Ramallah, however, brings its own unique challenges.  Not many mayors have to utter a sentence like “the soldiers are up there shooting at the kids.” At one point, the mayor is tear gassed in his own city hall, as the Israeli army rolls right up to the front windows.

The city has no sewage treatment plant (but there’s a Popeyes).   Palestinian rage simmers just under the surface, as some well-meaning German diplomats find out.  Mayor Hadid respectfully counters a politically correct politico who wants to spurn a visit by Prince William because Britain issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917.

Musa Hadid is a level-headed pragmatist whose calm demeanor can work to belie his strong fundamental principles.  He stiffens to state that you don’t negotiate unless there’s dignity.  Most of the time, however, he is refusing to overreact. 

“The situation? It’s happening whether we freak out or not.”

Mayor is being described as a dark comedy, which day-to-day local politics anywhere may well be. At one point, Mayor Hadid faces a LITERAL dumpster fire, which is, of course, also metaphorical.

Hadid and his high school- and college-age kids share am appreciation of irony and a robust sense of humor.   After each day filled with indignity, frustration and provocation, they relax with mutual teasing,  Even at city hall, there’s some amusing banter about Ivanka Trump.

Mayor is one of the Best Movies of 2020.  I watched Mayor on Virtual Cinema at Laemmle.

In Another Round, filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg once again explores human foibles with humor and cold-eyed insight – and profoundly to boot. And, in Another Round, Mads Mikkelsen delivers one of the year’s finest performances.

Mikkelsen plays one of four middle-aged male teachers – each in some sort of personal rut and struggling with career burnout. The other three are played by Thomas Bo Larson (love this guy whenever I see him), Magnus Millang and Lars Ranthe.

Grasping on to some convenient pseudo-science, the four decide to try living their lives with an alcoholic buzz – trying to maintain a steady blood alcohol level of 0.05 from morning through 8 PM. Now THERE’S a good idea.

They all should be trying SOMETHING new. Mikkelsen’s history teacher Martin is mailing in his job performance, so much so that his students and their parents confront him, worried that he won’t cover enough history for the kids to pass their exams. His marriage is comfortably civil but passionless.

With the boost of a drink or two, Martin and his buddies become more lively. Less inhibited, they fly back into their passions and share them with their students.

Suddenly, Martin is a man of spontaneity, shocks wife Annika (Maria Bonnevie) with a surprise vacation, and rekindles romantic sparks.

So far so good. But then they decide to try more is better, and try raising their blood alcohol level to 0.10. things don’t go as smoothly, and then they go on an epic bender and blow well past the 0.10.

The drunk behavior is realistic. So, some is funny slapstick, some is cringeworthy and some is heartbreaking. There’s a buffoonish moment in a supermarket, and we think that it would not be not amusing to be there in that moment. But when, out at dinner, Mikkelsen utters “It’s the little things“, the quip is hilarious.

Their experiment with alcohol treats each of them differently. One guy comes out ahead – he doesn’t suffer any long lasting consequences and even finally gets a girlfriend. Another guy blows up his marriage, but only temporarily, and he’ll be able to look back on this episode as a cautionary tale.

But alcohol abuse does not fit well with latent depression, with tragic results for one character.

Martin has the most complicated experience because he is predisposed to addiction. When it’s time for the guys to end the experiment, he can’t. There’s a moment when he receives a text message in a restaurant hallway, and we think “Leave right now!“, but he goes back inside for another drink. Will he be able to recover from the addiction? Another Round’s final thrilling scene ends with a euphoric dance – and leaves us with that question. (I think I know the answer.)

Mikkelsen’s performance is stellar. Usually we see Mikkelsen in charismatic roles; here he begins the story as a hollow shell, beaten down by the disappointments and responsibilities of life. He allows us to glimpse the talent, charm and vigor of his younger self. Finally, we see him thinking through each life choice (and choosing another round usually wins out); his Martin is not a hedonistic brute – he understands the consequence of each drink. Technically, his portrayal nails the various stages of drunkenness (which much be harder than it looks because even good actors don’t always get it right).

You’ll recognize Mikkelsen, a big star in Europe, from After the Wedding, the 2006 Casino Royale (he was the villain with the tears of blood) and TV’s Hannibal. He won the 2012 Cannes Best Actor award for his performance in Vinterberg’s The Hunt.

A groundbreaking writer/director, Thomas Vinterberg is an astute and cold-eyed observer of behavior. He broke through with Celebration (Festen), that darkest of dark comedy, and directed and the thriller The Hunt (Jagten). (And he can even do bodice rippers like Far From the Madding Crowd.) Vinterberg has worked before with all four of the main actors in Another Round.

Vinterberg also uses Another Round to comment on the drinking culture in his native Denmark (and, presumably, the rest of Scandinavia). This is a society that doesn’t blink at binge drinking, even by teenagers.

I watched Another Round on Virtual Cinema at Laemmle. It’s on my list of Best Movies of 2020 – So Far.