October 27, 2020
02:00
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Wouldn’t life be more pleasant in a permanent intoxication of mild intoxication? In the tragicomedy ‘Drunk’, director Thomas Vinterberg introduces four teachers who undertake such an experiment.
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Thomas Vinterberg, the director of ‘Festen’ and ‘Jagten’, is relieved. His new film ‘Drunk’ is popular in his home country Denmark. ‘People come to the cinema in droves,’ he says via Zoom. “There are many more than I could have hoped for.” His tempered expectations had several reasons.
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There is, of course, the corona crisis, which is not exactly stimulating cultural activities. The pandemic cost the film its scheduled world premiere in Cannes. In addition, the filmmaker did not know whether the audience would be interested in a positive story about alcohol. However, there is no controversy as yet. “I am assuming that the film will make the transition from the culture pages to the opinion pages,” says Vinterberg. “But that debate has not started yet.”
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0.5 per thousand
‘Drunk’ introduces four teacher friends who want to get back to life in their routine life through an experiment: testing the theory of the Norwegian psychiatrist and professor Finn Skarderud that people are born with half a percentage of alcohol too little in their blood. So they make up for the shortage during working hours. And the first results are indeed more than encouraging.
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I am assuming that the film will make the switch from the culture pages to the opinion pages.
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‘Drunk’ is a playful and often catchy film, but you can’t shake the feeling that the story sometimes sounds very irresponsible. Especially when Vinterberg cheerfully sweeps under the carpet, or even encourages, the drinking (say: binge drinking) of teenagers. Whether the film really makes you happy will therefore depend on your own values. There is no doubt that the protagonist Mads Mikkelsen and his colleagues are irresistible as usual.
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Drunk
‘Drunk’ is the new film by the Danish film-maker Thomas Vinterberg (‘Festen’, ‘Jagten’).
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The focus is on four burned-out teachers who start an experiment with spirits.
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The playful drama aims to show not only the dangers but also the joys of alcohol.
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The very strong actors more than make up for the sometimes shaky scenario.
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There is also a cultural factor. Danes have a complex relationship with alcohol, which probably explains the success of the film. The original Danish title ‘Druk’ already indicates this. “The word cannot be translated,” explains Vinterberg. It means ‘to drink heavily’, but it also has other nuances, such as shame, sadness, and pride. It reflects my own feelings towards the Scandinavian drinking culture. I am proud of it, because I think we are fundamentally too controlled. We need alcohol to loosen the reins. ‘
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For Ida Maria
By choosing teachers as main characters, the film nevertheless gets an extra sad undertone. You expect people in education to show young people the way, and this quartet has hopelessly lost its way. “I totally agree,” Vinterberg nods. This is a story about what happens when you lose your curiosity, and it can happen to any of us. How are you supposed to find your meaning in life again? I don’t see ‘Drunk’ as a story about alcohol but about life. ‘
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The filmmaker was able to experience for himself last year how fragile that life is. In May 2019, his 19-year-old daughter Ida Maria died in a traffic accident on the E40 near Verviers in Belgium. The film is dedicated to her. It was also she who continued to encourage Vinterberg while writing. The horrible event forced him to make the point that “Drunk” would be more than just some witty or provocative parable. “Alcohol is a bizarre thing,” says Vinterberg. ‘The stuff can raise people above themselves, but it can also kill people and destroy families. The full spectrum is in the film. ‘
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Fuel
The director had no trouble finding examples of famous people using alcohol as a creative fuel. The British statesman Winston Churchill and the writer Ernest Hemingway are featured, but the filmmaker Lars von Trier also fits in that list. Just like Vinterberg himself, because he wrote the screenplay for ‘Jagten’ with a bottle of cognac at hand. Who also comes into the picture is the Walloon PS politician Michel Daerden. ‘I just typed in’ drunk politicians ‘on YouTube, and I soon ended up with him and Boris Yeltsin,’ Vinterberg chuckles. That small montage reminds the audience that ‘Drunk’ isn’t necessarily about a bunch of crazy people in Denmark. You can find the phenomenon everywhere and in all layers of the population. ‘
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It is certainly not the intention to minimize the dangers of alcohol, he emphasizes. But booze isn’t the problem. “For me, control is the enemy of life,” he concludes. And alcohol can help. There are different stages when you drink. The first is euphoria. You become a better version of yourself. In the second stage you need alcohol to become yourself, and that transition is quite invisible. So if you feel yourself slipping into phase 2, stop drinking for a while. Then you can start on phase 1 again. ‘
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‘Drunk’ will be playing in the cinemas from this week.
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