Booze. Binge. Cultural cringe. Another Australian film? Not at all. ANOTHER ROUND is Danish, where getting into the piss is just as rife as in Oz.
ANOTHER ROUND starts with a schoolies scenario of drinking games – chugging till you chuck. What’s Danish for technicolor yawn? And why should students have all the fun?
At a 40th birthday part, a group of male teachers reflect on the theory purported by Finn Skårderud’s unconventional suggestion that when humans are born they have a blood alcohol level 0.05 per cent too low and that modest inebriation opens our minds to the world around us, diminishing our problems and increasing our creativity.
Putting this theory to the test, four friends embark on the efficacy of such a notion with some startling results.
Mads Mikkelsen plays Martin, a history teacher whose marriage seems historic rather than contemporary and whose vocation seems to have taken a vacation.
He discovers that by taking a belt – a shot of booze- before class he loosens up and presents a class with more gusto and verve than when he is cold, stone sober.
ANOTHER ROUND is an entirely entertaining conversation starter, a social lubricant to look at the role of alcohol in the individual and society. Inhibitions, intoxication and inebriation are intelligently scrutinised, but that wont stop the wowsers finding the film wanting and wanton.
Mikkelsen re-teams with award-winning, and internationally celebrated director of ‘The Hunt’, Thomas Vinterberg in an examination and a salute to alcohol’s ability to free up human beings – the liberation of libation – while cautioning not to relinquish a modicum of self control.
Thematically linked to ‘The Hunt’ by way of the protagonist being a teacher put under pressure and pilloried and persecuted that possibly no other profession would have to put up with.
For all its drunkenness, ANOTHER ROUND is a sobering film, a toast to participating fully in life and love. As to the film’s finale, eat your heart out Christopher Walken!