It’s a Wonderful Life… In Danish… and Russian.
On my son's recommendation, I watched this charming and edgy film from Denmark, called in English, Another Round (2020). Released during the pandemic, the film didn't make much money, despite great acting and directing, which makes it similar to its predecessor, great American film, "It's a Wonderful Life," totally ignored by the public when it was released.
"Another Round" deals with middle-life crisis and the haunting sense of failure. Rather than contemplating suicide, as James Stewart's George does in American film, the four teachers of Danish provincial school resort to drinking. That's the way to re-ignite spontaneity, hopes, energy, and confidence. Lack of confidence and anxiety seems to haunt many people in this seemingly charming and comfortable seaside town.
Granted that drinking gets crazy and embarrassing to watch, the film is gratifying and life-affirming. While "It's a Wonderful Life" asserts that "no man is a failure who has friends," this film, resorts to Kierkegaard and his musings on failure and the need to acknowledge and incorporate it within our lives.
The acting is stunning, all four friends are charming and disarming, but particularly the lead. His face captures strength and vulnerability as skillfully, as his body expresses energy, lethargy and despair. The films ends with a beautiful and ecstatic dance, which conveys so much of the film's meaning.
I would add to this mix, another one, which, despite it rather different idiom, confront a similar subject. I refer to the Soviet classic film, called "Let's Make it Till Monday (Доживем до понедельника). Luckily, it is available on YouTube with subtitles.
It is another great film about the teacher, who is viewed by some of his successful students as a failure. He is a war vet and brilliant and cultured person, yet he lives in a tiny apartment with his mom and teachers history in an ordinary high school (exactly like the guys in Danish film), feeling rather out of place in the silly atmosphere of a Soviet school. Rather than suicide or drinking, he considers simply resigning from school, but once he sees the eyes of his pupils whom he considers abandoning, he reverses his decision.
All three films walk the fine line between individual and collective. It is individual efforts that make the community, and it is the community and human relationships that confirm on individual his or her worth. Whose life is wonderful? That of a single person? That of community? The answer is both, it is the interaction of the two that gives our lives its meaning and worth, and make life itself so wonderful and unique.
Below are shots from Danish film and one set from the Russian one.
