• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Film
  • DVD
  • Editorial
  • About ScreenFish

ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Home
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • News
  • OtherFish
  • Podcast
  • Give

alcoholism

Another Round – Just a Little Buzz

January 16, 2021 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

The ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes is credited with saying, “Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.” Those of us who drink may recognize that concept. A touch of alcohol can make us just a bit more outgoing, more witty, more entertaining. Of course, too much alcohol can lead in the opposite direction. In Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round (original title, Druk), that idea is central.

Martin (Mads Mikkelsen) is a teacher who is feeling a bit of middle-aged ennui. He’s just going through the motions at school and in his family. He’s afraid that his life has become boring. When he goes out to celebrate of his friend’s fortieth birthday, the discussion comes around to a theory propounded by Norwegian psychiatrist Finn Skårderud, that people need a constant blood alcohol concentration of 0.05% to be at their best. (For reference, most states have a 0.08 BAC limit for driving.) Martin and his three friends (played by Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang, and Lars Ranthe), also teachers, set about to test this hypothesis. They even treat it as a psychological experiment, making notes about their experiences.

Martin begins to want to connect with students, his wife, his sons. All of the friends find that sneaking that drink from time to time during the day has improved many aspects of life—even during the times they aren’t drinking. Since that 0.05 BAC did so well, they decide to step it up, to see if there’s an upper limit. That, of course, is when the troubles begin. What started out as making life better, turned into a nightmare.

In press notes, Vinterberg says, “We want to create a tribute to alcohol but it goes without saying we also want to paint a nuanced picture. Embedded in our examination of the essence of alcohol lies an acknowledgement that people die from – and are destroyed by – excessive drinking. An existence with alcohol generates life, but it also kills.” The film is full of examples of people from history who were known for their drinking, such as Winston Churchill and Ernest Hemingway. But even there, the film reminds us that the former led Britain in winning World War II, while the latter, in spite of great literary success, committed suicide.

I find it worth noting that the film opens with a quote from Søren Kierkegaard, and Kierkegaard comes up again later in the film as a student goes through an oral exam. Maybe it’s just because the film is Danish, but bringing a proto-existentialist theologian into the equation calls us to think in deeper terms than just watching a group of men drink. The film really asks (but knows it cannot answer) the question of if such drinking brings happiness or destruction. It holds both scenarios and reminds us that, like other aspects of life, we are in constant tension between the two.

Another Round is available on VOD

Photos courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Filed Under: Featured, Film, Reviews, TIFF, VOD Tagged With: alcohol, alcoholism, Denmark, Teaching

I Saw the Light – Hank Williams’s Demons and Darkness

March 25, 2016 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

“Everybody has a little darkness in ‘em.”

Hank Williams is one of the names that is synonymous with country music. He has been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Songwriting Hall of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. There are so many songs associated with him that it’s hard to believe that he died when he was only 29. I Saw the Light is a celebration of Williams and his music from writer-director Marc Abraham.

i saw light 5

The film shows us Williams’s (Tom Hiddleston) life from the mid-1940s, when he is playing on a local radio station and in road houses, until his death from a heart attack on New Year’s Day 1953 on the way to a show. Hiddleston, who does his own singing in the film, does a wonderful job of creating a persona that evokes the legend of Hank Williams. The opening song, sung by Hiddleston standing alone in the spotlight, sets the stage for an admiration of this music. The film follows his meteoric career, his tempestuous relationship with his wife Audrey (Elizabeth Olsen), the domineering influence of his mother Lillie (Cherry Jones), and his struggles with alcoholism and pain medication to treat his spina bifida.

While the film has a good deal that will appeal to audiences (especially the performances and the sampling of Williams’s music), the film is a bit superficial. I came away from watching this feeling like I didn’t really get a chance to know him and to appreciate the demons he was dealing with. Those demons are more than just his addictions. We see a glimpse of his ambition, but not really the struggle to achieve his goals—nor the reasons he let it all begin to slip away while he was on top. His relationships with women—Audrey and Lillie especially—were never easy, but we aren’t really sure why.

I saw light 1

We also don’t see anything of the spiritual side of his life. The one line in the film that points to that is when he says “I made a little poem to the Lord. It might turn into a song.” The implication is this is the genesis of the song that lends its name to the title of the film—although we only hear him singing that song quietly to his infant son as a lullaby. (The song does come up again at his death.) Williams was a man who knew about the dark side of life, but who also had a foundation that gave him hope even with all the troubles in his life. His saw his songs not only as the darkness that everybody has within, but also as an expression of the joy that also is available to us. This combination of a flawed life and the understanding that there was something that could overcome those flaws, I think, is a side of Williams’s life that could have been examined a bit. He is, after all, the one who penned:

I wandered so aimless life filed with sin
I wouldn’t let my dear savior in
Then Jesus came like a stranger in the night
Praise the Lord I saw the light.

Photos courtesy of Sony Picture Classics

Filed Under: Film, Reviews Tagged With: addiction, alcoholism, biography, Cherry Jones, county music, Elizabeth Olsen, Hank Williams, Tom Hiddleston

Primary Sidebar

THE SF NEWS

Get a special look, just for you.

sf podcast

Hot Off the Press

  • Films in Full Colour #6 – JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH
  • Reporting from Slamdance – The Winners Are…
  • Reporting from Slamdance – a few final films
  • The United States vs. Billie Holiday: Keep Singing a New Song
  • Sex, Drugs & Bicycles: Wait, You Can Do THAT?
Find tickets and showtimes on Fandango.

where faith and film are intertwined

film and television carry stories which remind us of the stories God has woven since the beginning of time. come with us on a journey to see where faith and film are intertwined.

Footer

ScreenFish Articles

Films in Full Colour #6 – JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH

Reporting from Slamdance – The Winners Are…

  • About ScreenFish
  • Privacy Policy

© 2021 · ScreenFish.net · Built by Aaron Lee