Henning Carlsen

Chronicling a period of time in Paul Gauguin's life, this film follows him through his struggles in love and the financial problems caused by the inability to sell his artwork.

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An architect experiences health problems following a professional and personal setback. The conflicts culminate when he discovers that the businesspeople who want him to work for them are not only involved in financial crime, but also murder.

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Henning Carlsen's cinéma vérité trilogy on life and relationships begins with a portrait of elderly people in Denmark.

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The late 1930s. A young enemployed, unskilled worker walks through the streets of Copenhagen, sustaining himself partly on the dole and free soup-kitchen meals and partly on day-dreams. He spends time at a cemetry studying headstone inscriptions. Mild-mannered and of poetic bent, he understands little of an intellectual friend's advice and shies away from the love of a woman who shares her bed with him.

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Svante has disappeared and a journalist seeks Benny to hear about his relationship with Svante. In retrospect be seen Benny and Svante with Svante lived with Mrs. Jensen in Copenhagen. When Benny and Svante last meeting would Benny sure to Svante show was released. Benny seek police to report Svante missed and have given a description of Svante. For several years, we follow Benny hunt for Svante including through interviews with Nina. Police seek out the places where Svante traded and the nerve clinic he was hospitalized.

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After having been rescued from suicide, a young man is the object of a bet by his doctor that the doctor can help him recover his joy in life. Ironically, the doctor's life is not a very happy one either, and his boast has a hollow sound. For one thing, although he seemingly has a "happy divorce," in which he, his ex-wife and her new husband are all great pals, it's not true. He wants his wife back. All sorts of complications arise out of these lies and distortions.

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This is a film about the stuff dreams are made of, yet, there is nothing elevated in this concept, on the contrary. The characters around the bar Strudsen (the ostrich) are doing what ostriches do, hiding themselves from the threats of life and keeping their dreams to themselves. Scriptwriter Benny Andersen being a poet is rendering a loving portrait of a number of persons, who fail to try to make their dreams come true, possibly not being sufficiently dissatisfied with their life after all. The manager would like a bar of his own but dare not admit to it, the butcher would like to be an opera singer, the window cleaner (sorry, window polisher) is secretly in love with the bar lady, but dare not show it and the pianist willingly listens to all the different dreams being presented to him. This film was the best accomplished movie from Henning Carlsen since his debut with 'Sult'.

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This documentary examines a feature of Danish life in the late '60s and early '70s: the political commune. In a series of stiff and unrevealing interviews with members of the Kloevedal Commune, "Mao's Pleasure," director Carlssen seeks to discover why they have chosen to live communally. Turning the tables on the director, members of the commune also interview people who live ordinary, middle-class lives, ostensibly to find out why they chose their "lifestyles." Other footage concerns the Annisse Commune, a less radical organization which predates the Kloevedal Commune by decades. A highlight of the film is an interview with a very old woman who lives with and talks chiefly with her cats.

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A veteran sea captain abducts his niece for what he believes is his last chance at love. As the sad demon of the ocean Klabautermanden watches the passing of doomed ships, the niece awakens in her uncle's cabin. She makes him marry her but never allows the tyrannical captain to ever touch her. For eight years, the ship never docks as the malnourished crew wishes for death.

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A dancer and a Danish student meet on a train; she is going on tour to Rio, and he decides to follow her. Based on the novel by Jens August Schade.

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In 1890, Pontus, the starving writer, wanders the streets of Christiania, in search of love and a chance to get his work published. All he meets is defeat and suffering while his sense of reality is withering. One moment he is delighted and the next he curses everybody. All the time he manages to maintain human dignity and pride.

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The third and final part of Carlsen's documentary trilogy explores what it means to be young or old.

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A group of women are workmates at a laundry. Rike is spreading a rumor about the manager Marta, a rumor that Marta is a lesbian and that she once tried to seduce Rike. This leads to an explosive situation at the workplace.

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Martin has just returned home from Africa and meets Lis at an anti-nuclear demonstration. They begin a relationship, but it is disrupted by his memories of the war. Martin seeks out his old group from the war, but the others are unwilling to talk about the past.

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The story begins when Toby (Ivan Jackson), a young English businessman, arrives in South Africa to take charge of a publishing firm. He knows little about apartheid and so at first sees no contradiction in developing a relationship with an elite, upper-class white woman and with a woman dedicated to fighting apartheid. But as Toby makes friends with one of the black South Africans (Zaku Mokae), and as he registers both the subtle and more obvious, deep-seated racial prejudices of the minority white population, some of the truth of the oppression here begins to dawn. That is brought to a head when tragedy strikes.

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The second part of Carlsen's documentary trilogy explores the structure and importance of the family unit as an institution, and the opinions of family members as individuals.

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An American tourist walks into a souvenir shop in Stockholm and while he waits for the clerk to finish a phone call, he looks at various exhibited objects and the film then associates with various Swedish phenomena in work and daily life.

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This documentary examines a feature of Danish life in the late '60s and early '70s: the political commune. In a series of stiff and unrevealing interviews with members of the Kloevedal Commune, "Mao's Pleasure," director Carlssen seeks to discover why they have chosen to live communally. Turning the tables on the director, members of the commune also interview people who live ordinary, middle-class lives, ostensibly to find out why they chose their "lifestyles." Other footage concerns the Annisse Commune, a less radical organization which predates the Kloevedal Commune by decades. A highlight of the film is an interview with a very old woman who lives with and talks chiefly with her cats.

Open details →

Chronicling a period of time in Paul Gauguin's life, this film follows him through his struggles in love and the financial problems caused by the inability to sell his artwork.

Open details →

Henning Carlsen's cinéma vérité trilogy on life and relationships begins with a portrait of elderly people in Denmark.

Open details →

Svante has disappeared and a journalist seeks Benny to hear about his relationship with Svante. In retrospect be seen Benny and Svante with Svante lived with Mrs. Jensen in Copenhagen. When Benny and Svante last meeting would Benny sure to Svante show was released. Benny seek police to report Svante missed and have given a description of Svante. For several years, we follow Benny hunt for Svante including through interviews with Nina. Police seek out the places where Svante traded and the nerve clinic he was hospitalized.

Open details →

After having been rescued from suicide, a young man is the object of a bet by his doctor that the doctor can help him recover his joy in life. Ironically, the doctor's life is not a very happy one either, and his boast has a hollow sound. For one thing, although he seemingly has a "happy divorce," in which he, his ex-wife and her new husband are all great pals, it's not true. He wants his wife back. All sorts of complications arise out of these lies and distortions.

Open details →

This is a film about the stuff dreams are made of, yet, there is nothing elevated in this concept, on the contrary. The characters around the bar Strudsen (the ostrich) are doing what ostriches do, hiding themselves from the threats of life and keeping their dreams to themselves. Scriptwriter Benny Andersen being a poet is rendering a loving portrait of a number of persons, who fail to try to make their dreams come true, possibly not being sufficiently dissatisfied with their life after all. The manager would like a bar of his own but dare not admit to it, the butcher would like to be an opera singer, the window cleaner (sorry, window polisher) is secretly in love with the bar lady, but dare not show it and the pianist willingly listens to all the different dreams being presented to him. This film was the best accomplished movie from Henning Carlsen since his debut with 'Sult'.

Open details →

A veteran sea captain abducts his niece for what he believes is his last chance at love. As the sad demon of the ocean Klabautermanden watches the passing of doomed ships, the niece awakens in her uncle's cabin. She makes him marry her but never allows the tyrannical captain to ever touch her. For eight years, the ship never docks as the malnourished crew wishes for death.

Open details →

A dancer and a Danish student meet on a train; she is going on tour to Rio, and he decides to follow her. Based on the novel by Jens August Schade.

Open details →

In 1890, Pontus, the starving writer, wanders the streets of Christiania, in search of love and a chance to get his work published. All he meets is defeat and suffering while his sense of reality is withering. One moment he is delighted and the next he curses everybody. All the time he manages to maintain human dignity and pride.

Open details →

The third and final part of Carlsen's documentary trilogy explores what it means to be young or old.

Open details →

A group of women are workmates at a laundry. Rike is spreading a rumor about the manager Marta, a rumor that Marta is a lesbian and that she once tried to seduce Rike. This leads to an explosive situation at the workplace.

Open details →

The story begins when Toby (Ivan Jackson), a young English businessman, arrives in South Africa to take charge of a publishing firm. He knows little about apartheid and so at first sees no contradiction in developing a relationship with an elite, upper-class white woman and with a woman dedicated to fighting apartheid. But as Toby makes friends with one of the black South Africans (Zaku Mokae), and as he registers both the subtle and more obvious, deep-seated racial prejudices of the minority white population, some of the truth of the oppression here begins to dawn. That is brought to a head when tragedy strikes.

Open details →

Open details →

An American tourist walks into a souvenir shop in Stockholm and while he waits for the clerk to finish a phone call, he looks at various exhibited objects and the film then associates with various Swedish phenomena in work and daily life.

Open details →