Mediocre Movie Club Movie Reviews

The Hunt

11/21/2016

B+
3.48

A rural Danish school teacher is accused of a terrible crime.

Directed by Thomas Vinterberg
Starring Mads Mikkelson, Thomas Bo Larsen, and Annika Wedderkop
Initial Review by Joe Setnor

Thomas Vinterberg’s 2012 film “The Hunt” is aptly described as a thriller and some other catchy descriptors like “intense” or “psychological drama.” As a male teacher, however, I just witnessed a damn two hour horror movie of the most epic bloodbath proportions. For that, I hate you Thomas Vinterberg, but I’ll be damned if you didn’t create a beautifully crafted movie that leaves the viewer angry, confused, perhaps less hopeful about the people they surround themselves with.

“The Hunt” takes watchers on a torturous ride as Mads Mikkelsen’s character Lucas is the focus of sexual abuse allegations in his quiet Danish hometown. Lucas, a down on his luck teacher, suffers dramatic personal loss as his world crumbles around him due to the severity and lewdness of the allegations. At the deepest of his despair, he finds himself literally staring across the aisle at lifelong friends that return their gaze and only see a monster they want destroyed. Mikkelsen is masterful on screen as the hunted man. He shows great emotion and patience with his character, and he truly leaves you guessing how he is going to continue to respond to the witch hunt that he is engulfed in.

Jon Stewart once said “It's funny how everyone hates witch hunts... until they see a witch.” We see that phenomena play out in spectacular fashion as Vinterberg quickly pushes his movie along the path of mob rule and destruction. Vinterberg wisely allows nearly all legal or courtroom aspects that surround the plot to occur off screen. Instead he focuses the movie on the rapid emotional development of the social sphere surrounding Lucas. This really carries the movie because it shows the inherent danger in grabbing the pitchforks and torches and marching off for justice. As a viewer you find yourself hoping that someone, anyone, is going to grab control of the situation. At times it becomes nearly unbearable to watch because you already know your hope is a lost cause.

I give the movie an A-. It’s not a perfect, but as a teacher, it hits so close to home it’s scary.

18 Comments

Admin

11/22/2016 12:39:21 am

Reserved for replies to initial review

Joe link

11/22/2016 12:39:52 am

Let's talk Danish!

Bryan

11/22/2016 12:58:21 am

I find movies with a cold, real opening to be instantly gripping. The Hunt pulls this off well. Stuff happens, kids are weird, and I need a tangent...

Phil talks about breaking down the wall of realism or whatever he calls it. The Hunt enraged me because either (a) Denmark has no laws (b) Denmark's education system is run by baffoons, or (c) the director was trying to make me irate. First, when Clara kisses Lucas he should have immediately documented the event and informed his supervisor. Second, the headmaster should be required by law to call Child Protective Services as soon she hears Clara's story. Third, her interview with Clara and the rando she brought in were full of leading questions, you can't do that to a kid. Fourth, Grethe has some line about she can't handle the situation. That's absurd, teachers here go through mandatory yearly training covering how to handle these things. Fifth, Lucas' early passivity over the whole accusation seems nuts to me. Sixth, who thinks kids always tell the truth. I love me some Europe, and maybe it's more common there, but the idea of kids don't lie showed up 3 or 4 times from adults - bonkers!

If I can let all those things go, and pretend like the movie takes place in a land of idiots, the movie itself is quite good. Lucas is a weird dude who is either in shock or just oddly quiet. When his girlfriend asks him about the accusation he pauses and doesn't exactly deny it. This left some sliver in my brain that just maybe Lucas did something beyond what we've seen on screen. 2% chance, but it was still there.

The lack of cops and lawyers was both puzzling and pleasant. I wanted to know more, but the story itself was more about sadness than facts.

After we find out Lucas is free, his lawyer makes a great joke about Lucas and his son in the driveway, "don't fondle your boy."

The assault at the grocery was the most shocking. Again no lawyers or cops was odd, but it worked. Watching Lucas ring up his groceries was oddly satisfying.

The hunting trip shooting wasn't a surprise, but I was surprised the shooter missed. I was expecting Lucas to die.

I'll go with B- on this one. Gripping, but based on a series of lies, like children tell quite frequently.

11/22/2016 01:10:41 pm

So, a couple things. First, I don't think it's fair to apply the American system of education to the Dansish system. It also doesn't exactly mention a year, but I'm assuming we are supposed to take it for current time. Also, I assumed it was meant to be a psychologist or psychiatrist of some sort, and in a small town where everyone knows everyone, it made sense that there was a close relationship with between him and Gerthe.

Also, I don't think you are giving the adults in this situation enough credit for their paranoia and concern. I mean the little girl said "...it was a rod and pointed straight up." Or something of that nature. That is a very specific thing for a little girl to say, and it would raise about a million red flags.

Obviously from our perspective those questions being asked to Klara were leading, but they were coming from adults who were already convinced something had happened. I don't think her answer was really going to change how they were going to go proceed.

Also, do you really think the shot at the end of the movie was real? I thought it was something that was in his head. The scene to me illustrated how broken and scared he was a man having gone through that torturous witch hunt. He is never going to be the same, no matter how his friends and family have come back to support him. For the rest of his life he is going to doubt his friendships and will carry that scarlet letter in that town.

11/22/2016 03:23:19 pm

I don't doubt that it was a social worker or psychologist with the leading questions, but I've sat in on social work meetings and questions like that aren't asked by good social workers.

I understand the adult's hysteria, but I don't understand the concept that the whole town seemingly believes that children never lie.

The shot seemed real, I tend to not insinuate beyond what I see on screen.

Jon

11/24/2016 01:36:05 am

I don't think there's anything in the movie to suggest the final shot wasn't real. Lucas never gets a dream sequence, and there's never anything that could potentially be a daydream or a hallucination. I think it's perfectly in keeping with what we've seen that someone would take a shot at him, especially considering all the teens that are around.

Bobby

11/27/2016 02:11:56 am

I'm on the side that the shot wasn't real...

Klara had a one off dream/hallucination sequence when Theo came in to sit with her.

I think the final scene is showing us, that don't matter how well things seem to be mended and moving on, this will always be with him, and it will hang over him.. and he'll be aware of how people look at him and treat him.

If it was real... it just raises questions of, who was it, why did they miss (they had a scope, it wasn't far, and all the time in the world), and why didn't they take the second shot... only to slowly walk away as if he couldn't have went after them if it was real.

Obviously it was left ambiguous on purpose, which is fine... I just think it's makes the movie a sliver worse if it was meant to be real.

11/24/2016 01:40:10 am

On Lucas' response when his girlfriend asks him if he did it, I think his reaction makes a lot of sense. What's the point in denying it if she would ask the question in the first place? If she has some doubt that he might be able to do that to Klara, this relationship is dead in the water, and him denying it to her wouldn't make a difference anyways. May as well lean into her awful impression of him and toss her out.

Lane

11/22/2016 07:20:33 pm

In Thomas Vinterberg’s “The Hunt,” Denmark sort-of comes off as a Nordic Alabama—rural, clannish, introspective (in the worst way), lots of guns, generally poor haircuts. I can’t imagine this is the film the Danish tourism bureau would make.

I can’t say that this was a film I loved. Mainly because there didn’t seem to be anything distinctly cinematic about it. If this had been a film brought to American studios in 2016, it would have maybe made a decent 4-6 hour miniseries a la “Olive Kitteridge.” But maybe not even that, simply because the rest of Lucas’s life seemed to be so very boring I’m not even sure there would have been an extra 2-4 hours of dramatic material to pull from. It’s like the movie took the most boring man in the most boring country in the world and found the one thing that was remotely interesting or dramatic about him, which just happened to be a 5 year old’s lie.

This was an actor’s movie and Vinterberg directed it to the strength of his cast, but unfortunately I didn’t see anything overtly compelling in any of the performances. Mads Mikkelson was serviceable as Lucas. Lasse Fogelstrom’s performance as Marcus did a great job of portraying the insanity of adolescent emotions in crisis; Susse Wold as Gerthe was probably my favorite performance, though it was brief.

Okay, so bracket the source material and the actors for a moment: what ideas were interesting in this film? On this count, I give relatively high marks. Ultimately, this was a film of ideas—the way communities protect themselves; the way modern democracies handle sexual deviancy; the nature of friendship; the inability of institutions to protect their own. There was a lot of material to pull from here.

The idea that stuck with me was the contrast between the way the American political left generally idolizes the European centralized system, while much of the art that comes out of the most liberal of these countries often has a pessimistic tilt to it when it comes to government. Of course, universal health care is awesome, but what if it comes at the expense of a nanny state that enforces its will on the people? The police and courts are relatively absent in “The Hunt,” and maybe that’s a function of the low budget constraints of the filmmaking, but maybe it’s a European aesthetic that sees the state as basically faceless and formless, something that simply sucks up its ne’er-do-well citizens and spits them back out to deal with mob rule and flying cans at supermarkets.

Ultimately, what I most disagree with is the basic premise of the title of the film. "The Hunt"? I used to go hunting when I was a kid, and sitting in a tree stand for six hours waiting to shoot a deer has more dramatic weight than what happens to Lucas. The title of this film is a misnomer -- this isn't "The Crucible" (a witch hunt), this is "The Scarlet Letter."

In the end, I felt this film was merely pedestrian. I see some calling it a psychological thriller, but there weren’t many thrills to speak of. Whether Lucas survives the final scene or not seemed to be a pretty anti-climactic to me; the stakes for his survival were low to begin with, and by the end, the film hadn’t raised them much.

Grade: B-

11/24/2016 01:43:04 am

Vinterberg is one of the Dogme 95 directors, which is a list of restrictive rules that he and Lars Von Trier put down to make movies as simple and straightforward as possible. I don't think either really follows the rules anymore, but Vinterberg has definitely stuck to them longer than Von Trier, hence the general unflashiness of The Hunt.

11/24/2016 11:22:51 am

I disagree with those rules, though I appreciate the intention. There were a few moments in The Hunt where it seemed to be just a better acted Lifetime original movie.

11/24/2016 11:36:39 am

I've never seen any of those Dogme 95 movies. I agree that they don't sound especially entertaining.

11/24/2016 01:49:38 am

That's an interesting premise about the relationship between European cinema and government. The general facelessness is probably accurate with the added layer of bureaucracy of the EU. There's also their recent history of actual totalitarian governments that likely informs that perception. White God was Hungarian and therefore might know something about the government suddenly deciding that a certain species is suddenly undesirable.

Drew

11/22/2016 11:22:49 pm

The Hunt gripped the viewer from start to end. It held on to the ability to keep its audience on the edge of their seats and curious about the phase. That kind of ability speaks to the storytelling of Vinterberg.

Vinterberg's story was no doubt chilling. The teaching profession seems to be rocked every year by a case of sexual abuse or misconduct and this film was on the nose telling the story. This was a serious case that needed to be handle delicately and Vinterberg did a decent job of doing so.

Another point that made the viewer feel the pain of Lucas the main actor was his portrayal by Mads Mikkelson. Every suffering moment appeared real and charged with emotion. Two parts come to mind; the supermarket and church scenes. When he was pelted in the head with full cans of soup and his determination to get his groceries along with his yelling at his best friend Theo made the viewer feel Lucas' world falling around him. That was a recipe for great storytelling.

Now, one must wonder why the film was called The Hunt. Was it a metaphor for how Lucas was treated by the community? Was it a subplot that came to focus at the film's end? It was probably the former than the latter but an interesting thought.

The last part of the film stuck out at me like a cliffhanger. Lucas' son became a "man" and it appeared the community accepted Lucas back into the fold, except one person. Who shot at him? That was left for us to decide.

It was a chilling and real story that was told in the best way possible. This thriller kept viewers in suspense and focused on the plot. It was a good story and film but will be difficult to watch again in the future.

Grade: A

11/24/2016 01:27:28 am

When thinking of Scandinavians, the boisterous men of The Hunt aren't the picture that comes to mind. The stereotype, at least in my mind, is cold and humorless to match the climate. Thomas Vinterberg's film smashes that stereotype, if it's even real in the first place, by showing his characters essentially acting like economically-comfortable rural people anywhere, playing a lot of remember-when and reverting back to a younger time whenever they're around each other. They keep pictures of each other on their walls, next to pictures of their children, and they assume their kids will eventually do the same. This kind of bonding is revealed to be painfully superficial as the events of The Hunt transpire. Vinterberg asks what actions would rend such seemingly ironclad camaraderie. His answer is no action at all. Suspicion alone will suffice.

It's interesting that after Lucas is accused of child molestation, some of his friends stand by him. Why does his son's godfather hold out? Is it as simple as he doesn't have kids in Lucas' kindergarten class and doesn't have to wonder what his friend did to his son or daughter? Is the godfather's psyche just more resilient in that his critical faculties don't immediately shut down when he hears the word 'pedophile?' The Hunt doesn't really answer these questions, and I think that's why it's able to be more than a martyr's journey or misery porn. By having a variety of responses to the accusations, Vinterberg is more able to get the audience to think about what they would do in this scenario. The Hunt wonders not just how one would react if their best friend was accused of such an awful crime, but, if there was room for doubt, would the viewer have the courage to speak up, potentially standing up for the pedophile and risking the same kind of ostracism.

Vinterberg also does an excellent job of putting the viewer in the shoes of the accused. Mads Mikkelson is one of my favorite actors. As the owner of the best portrayal of Hannibal Lecter, he can freely alternate between supreme unknowability, as he did in Hannibal, and heartfelt agony, as he does here. Lucas, and to a lesser extent, Marcus, is not just made to suffer, accepting their punishments meekly. They both fight back, and in fairly ugly ways, to the injustice that's been visited upon them. Marcus spits in Klara's face, and Lucas bounces a hymnal off of Theo's head at midnight mass. Neither of them is turning the other cheek, or taking the high road. They've been dragged down into the muck by the town, turning on their neighbors just as their neighbors have turned on them.

The thing about all these reactions is that none are particularly unwarranted. The community allows itself to consider that the accusations are true and make mental associations between the person they think they know and the possibility that he was a monster the whole time, so some level of social distancing makes sense. Something precious has been taken away from Lucas, namely his ability to interact with children on any level without causing some disgusting thoughts in onlookers, and he lashes out accordingly. The documentary Twist of Faith is about a survivor of sexual abuse by a priest. It's extremely honest and raw, and the main subject talks about how difficult it is for him to have sex with his wife, as he can't help but associate that good thing with the terrible things that happened to him during his childhood. To a lesser extent, that's Lucas from now on, where every contact he has with a child is going to bring him back to this incident. Maybe it's impressive that he doesn't bounce more hymnals off more heads.

11/24/2016 01:28:33 am

The believability of The Hunt has been addressed, and while I do agree that the plot requires a lot of credulous people acting in concert, I don't particularly have a problem with it. False confessions don't seem to be hard to get, especially from motivated interrogators like a school administrator trying to weed out abuse. There's plenty of contemporary examples of sex crimes against children blinding otherwise intelligent people towards due diligence. The West Memphis Three jump out quickly. Four lesbians wrongly convicted of child abuse, the San Antonio Four, were recently acquitted after decades in jail. Cases involving facilitated communication, a wholly discredited technique for helping non-verbal autistic kids that often ends up in sex abuse accusations, still show up from time to time. As serious a crime of sexual abuse is, it engenders such a level of revulsion that it overpowers people's ability to think clearly, so if a movie needs to make the necessary people a little dumber, I'll buy it.

This is a difficult film to love, based on its subject matter, but I love it nonetheless. So many of the performances are internal, and from the adults to the kids, most of the characters get beautiful moments of introspection and turmoil. As a picture of Denmark, where six year-old's who can't look up and walk at the same time are trusted to get home by themselves, where the landscape, style of living, and portrayal of male bonding is an appealing pitch straight from their tourism department, Vinterberg makes his film look like a hidden-away paradise despite the less-than optimal behavior of the characters. I'd call The Hunt an intelligent morality play about unspeakable acts, and another entry into the genre of cinema that wonders how much anyone can ever know about anyone else. A

12/1/2016 11:40:11 pm

I echo a lot of the positive sentiments above...

While not an easy subject to deal with, I think it was done really well... with solid acting (always a bonus when the child acting is done well), nice direction, and a realistic narrative. I absolutely buy people acting like that... hive mentality, fear... people... it didn't feel off at all.

I think it does a pretty good job of going into the process and minds of people on both sides of such an accusation. Overall, an intelligently made film that kept me interested by putting forth an incredibly difficult scenario.

As noted, I lean toward the ending being a figment of his mind... as it describes how he still forever impacted by everything... he'll always wonder what somebody is thinking about him in that context.

A-

Cooker

1/9/2017 09:58:20 am

The Hunt wasn’t really what I expected it to be going in (I never read a description), but I enjoyed it. Mads Mikkelson (or Hannibal Lecter as I may refer to him later) put on an excellent performance as Lucas. At first I didn’t quite understand the title. Okay, he’s hunting deer (which made me not like him; hey, I like Bumbi), but later on you get the idea that when hunting you put a target on something, then it’s Lucas who eventually gets the target put on him for what he apparently did. He gets banned from the local grocery store, has a rock thrown through his window and his dog murdered.

This movie really reminded me of the South Park episode The Wacky Molestation Adventure, or as I simply call it the Children of the Corn parody. All the kids lie to the police that their parents molested them so they will be sent to jail; they even mispronounce it “molestering.” It’s that concept that kids don’t lie, even when they do, and putting paranoia in the minds of adults about certain situations. Even when Klara (the apparent molestation victim) tries to tell the truth, the parents think she’s just ashamed of what had apparently happened. Sadly, when the movie reaches its conclusion, and normalcy has somewhat returned, you see that Hannibal’s life will never be the same.

Not going to spend much time on this, since this movie was so last year. Enjoyed. A-

The Hunt

B+
3.48

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The Hunt

B+​3.48

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B+
3.48