Northern Light

Inspired the time the director, Thomas Vinterberg, spent at an academic community during his youth in the 1970s, the film provides a sensitive yet powerful emotive portrait of a time past with a dash of humour.

The Commune depicts the transformation process of a family relationship in a community and the pain that occurs when certain members leave. The Commune tells the story of a generation that had to face its own principles and convictions about emotional and social relationships, but who became the victim of their ideals, at a time when the great modern narratives about progress, cohesion and social welfare went into crisis.

Erik, an architect professor, inherits a large old house from his father to the north of Copenhagen. He leads a predictable and conventional life, along with Anna, a well-known TV presenter, and their daughter. One day, Anna suggests that they invite friends to live with them in a commune. Friends and strangers quickly move into the house. They make decisions in common; they discuss everything and disagree to a greater or lesser extent; however, the fragile balance threatens to break when Erik falls in love with Emma, one of his students who ends up moving into the house, challenging many preconceived ideas about communal life.

Dogville, with its unique staging, takes us on a winding route through the inner human being to pierce the motivation and moral drift of contemporary society. Dogville is a narrative device where the materials of film expression and plot structure exceptionally interact to provide a radical critique of the prevailing values of western culture.

Divorced from the conventions of film realism, this Danish film takes place in a scenario that is barely sketched out – lacking ornamental architectural references – to bring to the fore the ethical corrosion that is spreading under our own principles and prejudices.

The plot shows how Grace, a terrified woman, arrives in the remote town of Dogville, fleeing from a gang of criminals. She there meets Tom, the community’s moral voice, who tries to persuade the residents to hide her in exchange for services that offset the danger they face by sheltering her. Grace will learn, in a brutal fashion, that kindness in that town is something very relative. But she keeps a secret that she does not wish to reveal.

Thelma is a reflection on repressed emotions and their consequences on the life of a young woman trapped between religious conventions and desire. In this Norwegian film, Thelma’s body becomes an allegorical operator between reality and fantasy, where the underlying religious imaginary is subverted without exerting any moral opinion.

Architecture here plays a key role – midway between sensory experience and the emotional maze – by means of materials, textures and atmospheres that recall Alvar Aalto’s constructions.

Thelma does not consider herself a normal young woman. Worried about different events affecting her emotional life, she repeatedly asks God why he has made her like that. Her parents are not able to really help her or come up with clear answers to her questions. When Thelma, shortly after starting university, embarks on a relationship with a fellow female student, the emotions released will cause havoc

Considered to be one of the best Finnish films ever, The Match Factory Girl is the third in the “Proletariat Trilogy”, where the director takes us on an intense journey through the living conditions and the existential anguish of the Finnish working class. Kaurismaki here resorts to concisely and briefly recounting the events, to sober aesthetical compositions and to references to the films of Ozo and Bressono Godard, among others.

A film where the director seeks to depict – with his unique combination of harshness and tragicomic style – the difficulties faced by a young working-class woman whose life is upended by her pregnancy.

Kaurismäki’s films are noted for his sober treatment of his characters – ordinary working-class people, who despite the adversity of their living conditions, always find a glimmer of hope. With aesthetics that may seem cold and constrained, he delves into the humanity of the leading characters, into the fragility of their everyday acts and into the tenderness that awakes their loneliness and isolation, by filming them using long shots and a constrained staging, as the drama unfolds.

Iris, a lonely young woman has a soul-deadening job in a match factory. When she goes home, she has to put up with her perverse stepfather and unloving mother. She goes dancing at night to try and have fun and find a partner, but that never happens. Finally, she decides to take control of her life when she becomes pregnant and decides to take revenge on all those people who have humiliated her in the past.