This 1996 omnibus feature from the Copenhagen film-turned-theatrical producer Holland House redefines obscurity - virtually no one has ever heard of it - but it remains thoroughly fascinating and delightful. In the very best sense, the "running thread" so often used to bind omnibus features together feels very loose here (some of the court-metrages on display have a very tenuous connection to the overarching theme of Danish women) - but that completely works to the film's advantage. The picture may feel uneven on occasion, but even at its weakest, it gives one the sense that any type of short - reflecting any genre, any stylistic experimentation, any aesthetic perspective, any tone, any theme - may turn up. The film thus reminds the audience that a little bit of variety and unpredictability can be a total blast if one is in the right mindset.
The choice of filmmakers here is interesting as well; in lieu of going for big international marquee names (although contributors Krzysztof Zanussi, Dusan Makavejev, and Zhang Yuan are heavyweights), the producers veered toward the obscure, so odds are you've never heard of many of the directors on display - a number of them are conceptual artists or cinematographers, while others are only famous in their respective countries. The compilation begins on a bravura note, with a majestic ode to the city of Copenhagen; Sibelius is played atop a breathtaking time-lapse view of the town from the perspective of the rotating, golden female statues that overlook it. This panorama (which ultimately recalls Volker Von Bonin's still tableaux of Helsinki) serves as a fitting prelude to a veritable carnival of wonders. Among the film's many other highlights: Krzysztof Zanussi's contribution, with a wickedly funny dialogue on the looseness of Scandinavian girls by the Danish actress Sofie Gråbøl - capped off by a satirical sex scene that pairs the actress with a corpulent, long-haired and grotesque Max Von Sydow; Lars Norgaard's animation "Pork and Apple Stew," which defies description but is marvelously illustrated and throws in outrageous humor from way out of left field; Morten Skallerud's haunting fever dream of a journey to the Scandinavian fjords, where an archaeologist has time-lapse on-camera visions of the stick-homes built by settlers thousands of years ago; and Vibeke Vogel's small masterpiece (the film's crowning achievement), on a young Dane coming face to face with the image of her enigmatic, long-deceased father via his ornithological collection and an old slide projector.
Admittedly, not everything here works - Monika Treut's farce about Hollywood is gag-inducing, Gusztav Hamos's bit looks like a cheap, misguided local access project, and Scotch performance artist David Blair's contribution (a bizarre, virtually unwatchable mishmash of abstract visuals and cacophonous sounds) temporarily throws the film way off-track. But in the final analysis, one can overlook the handful of lapses, and the remainder of the contributions feel challenging, diverting, compelling, droll - and often beautiful. The film's only other outstanding flaw is that of a miscalculation: the motion picture works in an excerpt from Franz Ernst's documentary "Life is a Dream," and while the original film (on several schizophrenics who live in an institution) is downright brilliant, the producers here fail to give us a much needed introduction and contextualization for the clip at hand, rendering that segment confusing - and suggesting that a couple of informational cards preceding the short could easily rectify this. All told, the high quota of mesmerizing elements here make this a must-see for the adventurous viewer who manages to locate a copy. It may not quite be a masterpiece, but it's certainly up there.
