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This bold Danish film tackles the prickly subject of paedophilia, bravely delving into the consequences of mob mentality and blind finger-pointing

WARNING: Contains spoilers

Hunting, be it for deer or for a man accused of paedophilia, is the backbone of the latest film from Danish director, Thomas Vinterberg. Seasoned film buffs will remember Vinterberg from the Dogme 95 group of experimental film-makers, who sought to break the conventions of cinema while at the same time tackling unspoken subjects in an equally bold, head-on manner. One of Dogme’s best remembered films is Festen, which centres on a landmark birthday celebration in the family home of a wealthy and established right-leaning Danish family. Whilst delivering a series of after-dinner speeches, one of the (now grown-up) children uses his stage to accuse his father of child abuse. Such an outrageous vehicle gives Vinterberg’s handling of the subject a certain aloofness, which both shocks and disgusts the audience all the more. What must have taken place behind firmly closed doors of the family mansion is left entirely to our imaginations. Now, more than ten years later, Vinterberg has returned to this prickly subject, but this time takes the point of view of a nursery school teacher living in a close-knit town, accused of this heinous crime.

More than being about paedophilia, The Hunt focuses on the frailty of human psychology and sheep-like mentality which can turn otherwise rational beings into blind condemners. Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen) befriends five-year-old Klara (Annika Wedderkopp), the daughter of his best friend, Theo (Thomas Bo Larsen). Persistent rows in Klara’s household causes her to be neglected. When Lucas rejects Klara’s call to step into the shoes of a father figure, she accuses him of indecent exposure. Lucas is never given a chance to defend himself or even to learn clearly what he’s actually accused of. In no time, other children in the class also claim to have suffered the same fate at his hands. Condemned and threatened by neighbours, Lucas is even ostracised by local shopkeepers. Only his estranged son and a handful of friends come to his aid, until evidence gathered by the police reveals the absurdity of the accusations – several of the children claimed to have been repeatedly abused in the teacher’s house, and provide vivid descriptions of his basement. The trouble is his house does not have a basement! This forms the first glimmer of hope and a turning point that leads to the allegations eventually being dropped.

Scandanavian in atmosphere and nuance, the bleak subject matter is punctuated by beautifully composed scenes of the clear skies of rural Denmark in a Christmas setting. Their warm visual glow possibly act as a metaphor for the hope the audience always holds out on behalf of the protagonist, a man depicted as being too nice for his own good. With the feel of a cinematic ob-doc interwoven with classically directed shots, the visual aesthetics gracefully enhance the script. The only exception is at the very beginning, when the tripod shots seem to accidentally veer into hand-held film making, leaving the viewer uncertain about the director’s style or intention. In the main though, the film impresses with large landscapes and pretty villages, which contrast the venomous feelings harboured against an innocent. Why the crowd behaves with such spite with regards to an unproven crime is left for us to work out, but there are strong hints of the personal agendas of the condemners having their part to play. It’s somewhat akin to the 1957 Sidney Lumet film, 12 Angry Men, where the private hang ups of members of a jury who preside over a murder case are exposed; it’s thanks to one enlightened juror, played by Henry Fonda, that their biases are illuminated and the accused is eventually cleared. In The Hunt, Klara comes from a dysfunctional family, which is now brought together in their anger towards a newfound common evil.

The only really implausible scene in the film is the clumsy handling of the initial investigation by the head teacher: in trying to question the child, she brings in a man whose role is never properly explained and who puts ideas of abuse into the child’s head. They are ideas that adults around her, who were all too ready to jump on the bandwagon at the start, later have to reinforce in order to save face. Theo’s disloyalty to his best friend also happens a bit too quickly, but in the wake of today’s child abuse scandals, the pressure to pre-suppose the child’s innocence (after decades of the reverse being the case) prevails. What would have been interesting is to have been given more detail about the mechanisms by which whispers spread and rumours become solidified as fact.

Some of the most powerful roles are played by Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen won Best Actor at Cannes for his stoical part), Klara, and her father Theo. Increasingly torn between not wanting to disbelieve his young daughter and not wishing to accept the accusation against his closest friend, he becomes anxious about the community’s violent outbursts against Lucas. He feels powerless, despite realising that the accused could not possibly have committed the crime. Lucas’ son is also very strongly played, in outspoken defence of his father; Lucas himself remains resolutely silent for the most part, expecting right to establish itself eventually. Even after it does though, the suspicion lingers, the moral of the story being that there are some crimes for which even accusations will never be forgiven.

The Hunt is showing at Curzon Renoir in London.

Image from: http://onlyforkoolkids.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/the-hunt.jpg