APPLAUSE
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- APPLAUSE
- (APPLAUS)
- 2009, Martin Zandvliet, Denmark, 85 min.
- With Paprika Steen, Michael Falch
"A terrific drama and character study...Steen brings a thrilling emotional nakedness and an astringent, unsentimental honesty to the part."
—Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
"Taut and daring...the struggle inside Thea is almost theological in scale, and worthy of Milton or Kierkegaard."
—Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com
Paprika Steen, a mainstay of modern Danish cinema (THE CELEBRATION, MIFUNE, OPEN HEARTS), delivers a career performance in APPLAUSE. She plays Thea Barfoed, a stage actress whose current role as Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is uncomfortably close to her offstage life. Alcoholic, sarcastic, an expert at burning bridges, she makes a desperate attempt to put her life back together in order to win back custody of her two sons from her ex-husband (Falch). In his first feature film, Zandvliet channels Dogme and Cassavetes with an observant handheld style that captures the raw power of Steen's performance. In Danish with English subtitles. Special advance screening courtesy of World Wide Motion Pictures Corporation. 35mm widescreen. (MR)
Comments
saw this film a few months back in L.A. great performance by Steen. should have got an Oscar nomination. really gritty film that acurately portrays how a creative woman with a drinking problem tries to get her motherhood back on after she had to give up her kids when her drinking was out of control. and everything's complicated when her job is playing a crazy drunk on stage--she's a famous stage-actress in the movie. if u like superb, raw acting you'll dig this Danish film.