Adam's Apples
by Jeffrey Koh
The Gospel according to the Gibbs...Take that!
Group shot: Behold, the five misfits of religion.
While having proven he is capable of making painful heartwrenchers (Brothers, Open Hearts), Anders Thomas Jensen has also exhibited an acute flair for helming some of the most entertaining black comedies dotting the landscapes of modern cinema (Flickering Lights, Green Butchers). Adam's Apples however, resides in the pivot of this spectrum. It represents the culmination of all which make a Jensen picture so fascinating, whatever its genre trappings.
Serving the rest of his sentence at a remote Christian halfway house, neo-Nazi Adam (Ulrich Thomsen) begrudgingly meets his supervisor Ivan (Mads Mikkelsen), a priest who seems eccentric from the start go. As part of the induction interview, Ivan tasks Adam to set a goal within the time frame of his remaining days. The skin head jokingly suggests baking a pie, using the fruits from Ivan's beloved apple tree. Though it is apparent Adam is merely ridiculing Ivan's authority, the clueless priest (intentionally or otherwise) assigns Adam the duty of caring for the tree and eventually baking that pie when the fruits ripen.
There are other misfits in this sparsely populated church. Gunnar (Nicolas Bro), an obese kleptomaniac who cannot stop eating; Khalid (Ali Kazim), an easily agitated Arab who cannot stop cursing; Sarah (Paprika Steen), a slightly dim pregnant woman who cannot stop crying. All three seek refuge in this quirky sanctuary, reconciling with their respective histories while doing basically nothing else. Throw a few more archetypes into the mix, from a repulsively heartless doctor to skinhead thugs, from dying anti-Semites to a "lively immobile" boy (don't ask) and you will have encountered all the intersecting worms writhing within Adam's Apples. No matter, for the eventual taste of those strange fruits may yet lead these worms towards some form of redemption. Or not.
Apples moves along breezily enough. It generates laughs aplenty when introducing these myriad weirdos. But when misfortunes start befalling the apple tree (constituting some of the film's best comedic/dramatic set pieces), evangelical Ivan starts floating a notion to Adam that the devil is testing the bald sinner's resolve to get the pie made. But the goodness-averse Hitler worshipper does not suffer fools from a Christian zealot, least of all, a warped case like Ivan.
Ivan tolerates hostilities by completely deflecting them with nauseous zests or obnoxious good humour. It is soon learnt he also survived a series of unfortunate events in his life, any of which could have easily broken the strongest men. But in Adam's eyes, Ivan merely deny those troubles with grand delusions or is hiding behind his religious piety (The devil is testing him too, or so Ivan claims when confronted by Adam at one point). Adam thinks Ivan a coward, and despises the man with seething vehemence.
The latter half of this film hence shifts its focus onto an excruciating tug of war between Ivan and Adam. The silly priest seeks to rehabilitate the skinhead with religion and his self-styled good nature (sic). The skinhead seeks to break down the priest's hypocritical defences by whatever means necessary – with blatant insubordination, hardcore physical violence and increasingly cruel taunts which toggle between the threshold of good and the near unbearable edges of dare I say, evil.
From this point on, Apples assumes a dramatic heft further bolstered by moral/religious conundrums tormenting the film's protagonists. Will the priest break down and burn the crucifix? Will the skinhead cave in and memorise the bible by heart? All I can say is that the evolutionary journey for these two men will prove to be an enlightening one.
Beneathe its reckless violence, liberal slapstick and sardonic humour, Adam's Apples deftly straddles between political incorrectness and a thoughtful meditation on faith and morality. It illustrates the blurring lines of good and evil while pushing the limits of bad tastes to masochistic extremes. It is to Andersen's credit that he can keep Apples' disparate moods in check. In retrospect, the contextual build-up to articulate this film's eventual position on God and humanity completely takes my breath away. Lastly, allow me to exclaim at the intuitive choice to end this movie with that song. The congruence of its lyrics to this movie is so uncanny it simply knocks me off my feet!
Adam's Apples opens exclusively at Orchard Cineleisure on 3 August, 2006. Watch out for it.
Group shot: Behold, the five misfits of religion.
While having proven he is capable of making painful heartwrenchers (Brothers, Open Hearts), Anders Thomas Jensen has also exhibited an acute flair for helming some of the most entertaining black comedies dotting the landscapes of modern cinema (Flickering Lights, Green Butchers). Adam's Apples however, resides in the pivot of this spectrum. It represents the culmination of all which make a Jensen picture so fascinating, whatever its genre trappings.
Serving the rest of his sentence at a remote Christian halfway house, neo-Nazi Adam (Ulrich Thomsen) begrudgingly meets his supervisor Ivan (Mads Mikkelsen), a priest who seems eccentric from the start go. As part of the induction interview, Ivan tasks Adam to set a goal within the time frame of his remaining days. The skin head jokingly suggests baking a pie, using the fruits from Ivan's beloved apple tree. Though it is apparent Adam is merely ridiculing Ivan's authority, the clueless priest (intentionally or otherwise) assigns Adam the duty of caring for the tree and eventually baking that pie when the fruits ripen.
There are other misfits in this sparsely populated church. Gunnar (Nicolas Bro), an obese kleptomaniac who cannot stop eating; Khalid (Ali Kazim), an easily agitated Arab who cannot stop cursing; Sarah (Paprika Steen), a slightly dim pregnant woman who cannot stop crying. All three seek refuge in this quirky sanctuary, reconciling with their respective histories while doing basically nothing else. Throw a few more archetypes into the mix, from a repulsively heartless doctor to skinhead thugs, from dying anti-Semites to a "lively immobile" boy (don't ask) and you will have encountered all the intersecting worms writhing within Adam's Apples. No matter, for the eventual taste of those strange fruits may yet lead these worms towards some form of redemption. Or not.
Apples moves along breezily enough. It generates laughs aplenty when introducing these myriad weirdos. But when misfortunes start befalling the apple tree (constituting some of the film's best comedic/dramatic set pieces), evangelical Ivan starts floating a notion to Adam that the devil is testing the bald sinner's resolve to get the pie made. But the goodness-averse Hitler worshipper does not suffer fools from a Christian zealot, least of all, a warped case like Ivan.
Ivan tolerates hostilities by completely deflecting them with nauseous zests or obnoxious good humour. It is soon learnt he also survived a series of unfortunate events in his life, any of which could have easily broken the strongest men. But in Adam's eyes, Ivan merely deny those troubles with grand delusions or is hiding behind his religious piety (The devil is testing him too, or so Ivan claims when confronted by Adam at one point). Adam thinks Ivan a coward, and despises the man with seething vehemence.
The latter half of this film hence shifts its focus onto an excruciating tug of war between Ivan and Adam. The silly priest seeks to rehabilitate the skinhead with religion and his self-styled good nature (sic). The skinhead seeks to break down the priest's hypocritical defences by whatever means necessary – with blatant insubordination, hardcore physical violence and increasingly cruel taunts which toggle between the threshold of good and the near unbearable edges of dare I say, evil.
From this point on, Apples assumes a dramatic heft further bolstered by moral/religious conundrums tormenting the film's protagonists. Will the priest break down and burn the crucifix? Will the skinhead cave in and memorise the bible by heart? All I can say is that the evolutionary journey for these two men will prove to be an enlightening one.
Beneathe its reckless violence, liberal slapstick and sardonic humour, Adam's Apples deftly straddles between political incorrectness and a thoughtful meditation on faith and morality. It illustrates the blurring lines of good and evil while pushing the limits of bad tastes to masochistic extremes. It is to Andersen's credit that he can keep Apples' disparate moods in check. In retrospect, the contextual build-up to articulate this film's eventual position on God and humanity completely takes my breath away. Lastly, allow me to exclaim at the intuitive choice to end this movie with that song. The congruence of its lyrics to this movie is so uncanny it simply knocks me off my feet!
Adam's Apples opens exclusively at Orchard Cineleisure on 3 August, 2006. Watch out for it.
Labels: anders thomas jensen, danish cinema, siff
posted by Jeffrey Koh at 12:12 PM
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