Allegro (2005) Reviews

• a strangely absorbing mind puzzle

  Buddy-512008-08-14

  The Danish film, "Allegro," is that rare science fiction film that uses only the barest minimum of special effects to tell its story (a slight wrinkle in the picture is about as high tech as the filmmakers are willing to go). Instead, the fantasy and surrealism play out almost exclusively in that far more intriguing venue known as the Theater of the Mind. Zetterstrom (well played by Ulrich Thomsen, who appeared in the excellent "Brothers" a few years back) is a concert pianist who has never been able to find true happiness in his life, even after he's met and formed a relationship with Andrea (Helena Christensen), the supposed woman of his dreams. Zetterstrom may be a brilliant musician, but he suffers from an innate distrust of other people, including those who are nearest and dearest to him. When Andrea decides to up and leave him virtually without warning, Zetterstrom imposes a form of amnesia on himself that effectively wipes out all memory of his life prior to her departure. At the same time - and this is where things really get strange - the section of Copenhagen where he was born and raised undergoes a bizarre transformation, suddenly becoming cut off from the rest of the world by some inexplicable supernatural force. Though no one can physically enter this area - now officially re-named The Zone - Zetterstrom is determined to force his way in, when, after ten years of not being able to recall his past, he begins to suspect that his memories may actually be residing in that mysterious place. Needless to say, this is not your average science fiction movie, nor is it your average tale of lost love. But by combining these two usually distinct genres into a single story, director and co-writer (with Mikael Wulff) Christopher Boe has come up with a work that is both thought-provoking and haunting in its otherworldly strangeness. Zetterstrom wanders through the maze of this "pseudo" city like one in a trance or a dream, searching for clues to his forgotten past and trying to figure out the identity of the strange woman (Andrea) who flits in and out of the shadows of his imagination. The message of this strange little parable seems to be that even the most tragic events of our lives make up a crucial part of who we are - and that any effort to dull the pain of those events by tucking them away in a corner far out of reach of our memory only winds up diminishing us as a person in the end. Zetterstrom learns that lesson the hard way, but at least he does learn it. It reflects well on the filmmakers that they've presented their case in as uniquely fanciful and absorbing a way as they have in "Allegro."

• Boe is an Artist's Artist; He weaves a mesmerizing world

  film_ophile2008-01-22

  Inspired by having seen the provocative Reconstruction last year, I watched Allegro last night and found it to be just spectacular. I think Boe is one of those amazing Renaissance people, whose skills crossover like blossoming fireworks.Above all else, I appreciate his concepts, which become his story lines.Supporting them is his very idiosyncratic visual style. The film is dark and moody, like its protagonist, and there is little dialogue. Long contemplative shots are frequently interrupted by a barrage of split-second images- the equivalent of memory flash cards. The cartoon story that plays during the film's introduction- tells the simple story one is about to see unfold. It's basically a one sentence story about the necessary role that deep feelings play in the life of any great artist. I see that simple story as a spider, and the ensuing film as the web around the spider. I particularly like it that the narrator clearly tells us, at the very beginning, what the film is about, and then we spend the next hours watching that spider web be built and travelled. What a fascinating world Boe creates. I must say I am very surprised to have not seen much IMDb discussion of this film . I only hope that many more people will soon have the pleasure of its experience.

• Artistic, provocative and clever!

  paulo_alexis2010-01-02

  This Danish film tells us the story of an accomplished pianist, Zetterstrøm (Ulrich Thomsen), who returns to his native Copenhagen after spending 10 years abroad. Zetterstrøm is a virtuoso who is depicted as cold and emotionally detached man with a mysterious past. Upon his return to Copenhagen, he is lured to visit a segregated part of the town by an enigmatic invitation for a dinner. The 'place' is denominated the 'zone' and is where he used to live. Upon his return to Copenhagen, Zetterstrøm is overwhelmed with fragmented and 'undigested' memories and images from his mysterious past that he desperately tries to suture into a coherent narrative. The film depicts the intimate relationship between memory and identity (in the film, Zetterstrøm is hidden from the audiences during the concert). Despite not finding the acting excellent (I've seen a lot better from Ulrich Thomsen and Helena Christensen's debut performance was too insipid), I have to say that the film is conceptually very well structured. I found the cartoons and the 'timeline' very clever contextualising Zetterstrøm's perfectionism and 'sealing-over' (young boy putting a doll inside a box). The soundtrack is outstanding with classical compositions. The only negative aspect was that, at times, the film offers far too many explanations that are unnecessary and 'kill the romance'. I also found the long contemplative shots too 'cheesy' for my taste. On the positive note, I thought it was very clever the way compartmentalisation and dissociation were portrayed. His memories were 'isolated' and 'segregated' in the "zone" – forbidden and inaccessible area, which is surrounded by a façade - 'the zone' is both a geographical part of Copenhagen i.e. ghetto (political critique and social dimension) and a part of Zetterstrøm psyche - its' interiority and content. The 'Policemen' were outside the perimeter due to the presumed dangerousness of the 'zone', despite its inaccessibility. The 'zone' has oneiric qualities i.e. symmetrical logic, and is accessed through a 'public toilet' in a modern version of Wonderland. The streets and canals have an atmosphere of uncanniness which is perfectly constructed. The part where Christensen's corpse is emerged from the canal by the rescue team, the sutures in her abdomen reminded me of something grotesque and frankensteinian. In the last part of the film, Zetterstrøm tries to play his composition and the symptom 'emerges'. There is a clever 'displacement' and a 'return of the repressed'. Zetterstrøm is unable to play in tune - as he lacks 'emotional attunement' and no longer just emotionality in his interpretation. Overall, it's a very interesting and clever film, worth watching.

• A masterpiece of self abnegation

  oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx2009-07-12

  I'm a big fan of existential folly in film, especially having completed many of my own. Zetterstrøm is the main character in this movie, a world-renowned pianist from Denmark. Since childhood, he is an assiduous "forgetter" of everything except his piano playing. This is to say that he stores up his disappointments, forgets them, and retreats behind a piano. After a love affair that ends due to his emotional constipation, he uses his facultative amnesiac skills once again, and this act is one step too far, so inimical to the fabric of reality, that a rent in reality is formed over three city blocks, and becomes referred to as the "Zone". Zetterstrøm buries himself in his solitary existence of piano-playing, quite literally performing concerts in the dark, or behind screens so that the audience cannot see him. Shadowy figures draw Zetterstrøm back to the zone, unwilling to allow his non-confrontational existence to continue. Zetterstrøm must be made to confront his past. It's a fascinating film, the narrator lets us know that it's Zetterstrøm's very brilliance which allows him to annihilate himself, that allows him to inoculate himself from reality. I'm in absolute adoration of films that attempt to make visual metaphors of the human mind, such a film is this (the Zone fulfils this purpose), Tarsem films such as The Cell and The Fall are others. There is no subject more sacred, more revelatory as regards human potential. There's a scene where Zetterstrøm sits and has dinner in an ornately plastered ballroom. The windows and floor are all blacked out with plastic sheeting, and the room is covered in latched boxes loaded on pallets, representing Zetterstrøm's repressed past, there's also a cage with globes of light in, recognising the potentiality of his mind. When there's narration we also see some very nice cartoons with Zetterstrøm as a child, that's another metaphor I'm very fond of from The Cell, that many of us are still children inside, just wounded, subdued, and with horrid barriers put up. You may have guessed that this movie moved me deeply.

• Bad acting and very boring!

  hyti9992005-11-10

  This film is one of the most over explaining and clumsy symbolic films I have seen in a very long time. It is simply straight out boring because it tries to be so "mysterious" all the time, but in fact it is quite a simple and unoriginal story. They are just trying to make it more interesting by using a lot of very heavy symbolism, instead of going in depth with the real story or the characters. It's very superficial and film school like. And almost everybody in the cinema were either sleeping or leaving before the film finished. And I wished I had done the same after wards. I just kept on thinking that something would happen. But it just didn't. Also the fact that Helena Christensen really can not act, even though she is very beautiful, is a big problem for the film. Being a photo model is obviously something very different from being an actress. It seems like the director just wished a beautiful face instead of a real character, and that is maybe more or less the problem of the whole film. It's not like for example a David Lynch film where you can feel that the mystery comes from something real. Something that the film maker actually knows something about.