Film: Life in a Danish Commune in the 1970s

THIS month’s screening by Thame Cinema For All,  on Friday, October 21, is a new Danish film, The Commune, a certificate 15 film, set in a commune the 1970s – and it’s not all free love and fun, as it turns out – though there is some of that!

The Commune is Directed by Thomas Vinterberg, and stars Trine Dyrholm, Ulrich Thomsen, Fares Fares, Julie Agnete Vang, Lars Ranthe, Helene Reingaard Neumann, Mads Reuther, Martha Sofie Wallstrøm Hansen, Magnus Millang and Anne Gry Henningsen.  The setting is Copenhagen, the 1970s. Anna, a successful television journalist, and Erik, who lectures in architecture, inherit a rambling and capacious suburban home when Erik’s father dies. Initially intent on selling it, Erik is persuaded by Anna that the house represents an opportunity for them to revitalise their lives and stave off the torpor of affluent mid-life: they will turn it into a commune, and invite their witty, creative, unconventional friends to live with them.

So far so happy, the mood is celebratory, and frequently comic. The friends unite around the dining room table, agree house rules, share cooking, much wine, laughter and agreeable chaos. But their experiment in collective living soon shows signs of strain: issues of ownership, privacy, parenting, boundaries and finances require constant and sometimes tense negotiation, the situation proving particularly testy when Erik and Anna’s marriage falters and Erik begins a relationship with one of his students.

The film explores what happens when the group is required to accommodate the new addition to their number, and Anna must endure the hurt and humiliation of her very private loss under collective scrutiny, without control of her domestic space. What begins as something warm and nostalgic (the flares, the facial hair, the nudity, the fags, the décor…) becomes a moving and compelling dramatic examination of the tension between lofty idealism and the implications for the individual of collective living and sexual freedoms, with a storming performance from Dyholm as Anna, the emotional and moral heart of the narrative. Watch the trailer here.

SOURCE: Contributed by Catriona Gilmour Hamilton