After the Wedding

I've lately found a better alternative in foreign movies, or maybe it's just that Australia disappointed me so as to question my loyalty for Hollywood. (Well, if we can call that Hollywood at least). I bet there's a lot of awful foreign films and a lot of slow, low budget stuff that'll put you to sleep, I've sure seen some myself.

As far as European films go, I think they deal with time different than Hollywood does, and in that sense, Hollywood beats them to the punch line, literally. That said, what I mean is, I DON'T HAVE 50 years to watch the Godfather, I'll settle for 3 hours (or 7 if I watch both back to back). So, why try to have lots of scenes in real time? where nothing happens? or at least nothing conducive to the overall premise? That can usually bring me to a yawn in many european films.

So considering After the Wedding is Danish and, of course, it involves a wedding, which directors sometimes treat like it's a wedding video and want to capture a lot of what's happening, this movie is a little slow in this sense, and if only it were 20 - 30 minutes shorter I bet it could have been submitted for best foreign language film on behalf of all its Scandinavian producers.

The premise seems original enough, the characters are well developed with purpose and motivation for their actions, there's no hay filling up the space (again, it's slow, but there's no unnecessary fillers which is good). It touches sensitive issues dealing with family, adoption, etc.

All in all, I do recommend this movie. Rent it. (Remember, that's like 3 out of 5 stars). As far as wedding movies you're better off with this one than with Rachel Getting Married (AKA Bobby Getting Bored) (Watch it), but you'll probably be more entertained by some of its Chinese counterparts. (You figure that one out, I forgot the name... The Wedding Banquet, was it??), as for Danish movies, this one is up there with The Inheritance... slow but good.