The Clayton Brothers: The Most special day of my life.













today,
three immensely positive newsflashes from the past week: my days of social nadir has definitely evaporated. This week I attended no less than two movie-premiers. That’s like…so much up the ladder, the height is almost frightening.
On Wednesday, by rubbernecking on the means, tolls and networking of Swedish novelist Jakob Ejersbo I attended the opening night of Ole Christian Madsen newest film, “Prag” starring Stine Stengade and the omnipresent frenzy of Mads Mikkelsen.

The film: Christopher (Mads Mikkelsen) has been summoned To Prague to bring home the corpse of his deceased father, with whom he havnt had any contact for 25 years. Simultaneously his marriage with Maja (Stine Stengade) is running dry, as Christopher confronts her with the inescapable fact, that he knows she is having a very intimate affair with a younger man.
Shot on location over 24 days in Prague, the city serves as a perfect kafkaesque backdrop for the narrative that unravels. At first impressions it seems that Christopher is willing to do everything to save their marriage, but the closer he gets to the full story of his father life of which he knew nothing, and to which he is caught somewhere between indifference and hate, the more he seems to acknowledge that his marriage is over, and that he wants it to be over as much as Maja. It doesn’t go about without intense drama in really well played low-fi scenes, and the dialogue is as tense, honest and emphasizes the absence of choice, except for the final break up.
Stengade and Mikkelsen are playing each their character with great integrity and credibility, and it is clear in the direction of the movie, that O.C Madsen has great and equally sympathy for both Christopher and Maja. It stands out that the director knows the story well and it is told with the twists, dilemmas and desperation that I can only imagine is the cold reality of a break-up and he clearly avoids the clichés at hand.
Also I find it clear that he states that The Modern, do offer an “afterlife”, and that there are reasons not to underestimate and respect the family structures and cultures that emerges and constructs, following the rising numbers of first family break ups.

http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_Christian_Madsen

On Friday I attended the premier of four movies at Cinematekets sneak bar. The first 3 were not the best I have seen, mostly they came out as dramatized jokes, that all were 17 minutes too long. On the other hand, the last movie of the night: “Hvordan de danser” (How they dance) by Jesper Ravn came out clear as daylight.
An almost anthropological short-film depicturing four average danes, chosen among hundreds, to perform a dance to their favourite tune.
The performances of a slightly overweight 34 year female old school-teacher, doing booty-shakes and hard choreopgraphy to a Beyoncè Knowles hit, the 50-something year old male århus-based gartner and American doing a spectacular anachronistic dance in flip-flops whilst undoing and doing his ponytail to a latino-up beat tune, the 35 year old male writer and in many ways bookkeeper in a crossover between electric boogie, elvis-moves and just pure emancipation in top shined shoes and footwork to Desmond Dekker`s “The Israelites”, and finally the 17 year old female from Århus, doing it in front of flames to “Relight my fire..” was nothing less than a brilliantly sympahtetic and honest film.

http://www.dfi.dk/cinemateket/Cinemateket.htm

Then this morning, the long awaited package from Amazon arrived with the Book (see picture, top): “The most special day of my Life” by artist brothers Clayton.
The Clayton Brothers do very narrative, autobiographical, surreal and ethereal and subliminal paintings: From memories of surburban decay coated with irony and humble truths.

The site
www.claytonbrothers.com