19/09/2005

Danish director Per Fly last weekend attended the San Sebastian International Film Festival to present Manslaughter [+see also:
trailer
film profile], in competition for the Golden Shell ("Concha de Oro"). Following The Bench (2000) and Inheritance (2003), Manslaughter completes the director's trilogy on lower, middle and upper class Denmark. The film, which seems to begin as a middle age crisis tale with the lead male character having an affair with a younger woman, develops into a disturbing story which raises delicate issues such as political activism limits, torture, murder and guilt.

Carsten is a middle class teacher trapped in a semblance of a marriage. He is in love with Pil, a former student of him, now a left-wing political activist. "I prefer to act" – she says, "Nothing worse than a passive society". A political statement provoking a personal response from Carsten: "I love you". He does indeed, in a selfish way, because she seems to represent all the ideals he has been teaching for years – the ideals that for some reason, he never managed to put into practise. One night Pil runs over a cop who was trying to arrest her after a factory raid. She ends up in jail and the affair with Carsten is revealed. After facing alleged tortures in jail and an attempt at suicide, Pil is about to confess. But Carsten keeps convincing her to remain silent, even if the decision is costing him both marriage and career.

Jesper Christensen plays this middle age intellectual in crisis, providing us with an intense performance, especially towards the end of the film when his world seems to collapse. Men like Carsten were politically committed in his youth, but the actor refuses the notion that it is a generational portrait: "Carsten is facing difficulties growing older, but that's just him. If the film was a portrait of the 60's generation, it would be a very bad project".

However, Manslaughter is much more than a personal drama. It is a political warning disguised as cinema. "Fighting for a better life should never cost a human life but in this case it did and I tried to show what consequences it might have", said Per Fly, who was in contact with Danish global activists to prepare the film. "I wanted to go deep into reality and find elements to feed the film. Political films must be complex: they must raise questions, more than given straightforward answers".

Already released in Denmark with 16 prints, Manslaughter is a Zentropa production, in co-production with Spillefilmskompagniet 4 ½ and Memfis Film. World sales are handled by Trust Film Sales.