From here : http://www.bt.dk/Rampelys.pl?c=right&aid=124770
The Audience praises “It’s all
about love.”
The first introduction to the public. Thomas
Vinterberg highly discussed movie will now show if it will pass the
examination.
By Charlotte Wendt Jensen
And if you talk with the audience that came
out from the Dagmar theater, it will be a good examination.
“I thought it was very good, much better than I had expected” a young girl says. An older woman was just as enthusiastic. “ Even though it was a bit confusing it gave you a lot of positive things to think about. It had beautiful pictures and beautiful sound” she says. Her friend was the only one of the many asked audience members that was a bit critical. “It was a very strange movie and not really my taste.” Otherwise the audience were just as high with praises as the stratum of air the weightless Ugandans were floating in, in the ending of “It’s all about love.”
“I thought it was very good, much better than I had expected” a young girl says. An older woman was just as enthusiastic. “ Even though it was a bit confusing it gave you a lot of positive things to think about. It had beautiful pictures and beautiful sound” she says. Her friend was the only one of the many asked audience members that was a bit critical. “It was a very strange movie and not really my taste.” Otherwise the audience were just as high with praises as the stratum of air the weightless Ugandans were floating in, in the ending of “It’s all about love.”
From the gala premiere of “It’s all about love.”
Picture of Thomas Vinterberg and his wife
Maria Walbom arriving to the premiere.
From the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet
January the 10th 2003
The victory of love.
It has been 4 year since Thomas Vinterberg was
praised all over the world for his fantastic movie “ Festen.” He was
therefore very nervous when he went to the Gala Premiere for his new movie
“It’s all about love” in the Imperial cinema in Copenhagen. A
dreaming vision of judgment day in a world that is on the way to freeze
down. A movie that tells that love rules everything and for
Vinterberg personally it was judgment day that night.
“I am under a lot of pressure and I feel like I am going to be knocked down by 50 journalists with big sticks” Thomas Vinterberg says.
“I am under a lot of pressure and I feel like I am going to be knocked down by 50 journalists with big sticks” Thomas Vinterberg says.
What do you think about the bad reviews in
the newspaper BT ??
“Fuck BT. I have received so many wonderful
expressions about the movie in emails from people that means a lot to
me.”
I can tell you that Ekstra Bladet,
Berlingske Tidende and Politiken all give you 4 stars.
“ Well that sounds pretty good. But for me
it has been more important that it has been optimistic to make the movie.
To have be on deep water has been a victory in itself. There are parallels
in the movie to my own life. Especially after “Festen” when I was
constantly on the move, travelling around the world. A lonely cosmopolitan
life that has had an influence on this movie. A time alone in airplanes
and with a huge loss for the people you love back home. It’s all about
love. And I can definitely say that my biggest love in this world is my
wife and my two daughters Nanna and Ida “ Vinterberg says and
warmly squeezes his wife’s hand.
Short afterwards Vinterberg stood beside his
old mentor the co.-writer Mogens Rukov, who in a judgment-kind of way,
with a hoarse voice after a million cigarettes proclaims : “ In the
movie, that takes place in the year 2021, we got the idea to let it snow
in Paris and Venice. Today it also snows in Paris and Venice. But it’s
all about love. It just is. Watch the movie like a dream.”
IAAL Review from the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende January the 9th
By Ebbe Iversen
Love on thin ice.
Movie : Thomas Vinterberg’s ambitious
future movie “ It is all about love” is a shapeless and unreleased
colossus, but not the less marked by courageous visions and original talent.
Four stars our of six
Fragile. That is a word which Thomas Vinterberg
himself has used about his movie “It’s all about love,” and that
covers it precisely.
The word is not synonymously positive or negative. A fragile porcelain figure can be beautiful and precious at the same time, but on the other hand you don’t want to ride on a fragile bike. In both ways the interesting word describes Thomas Vinterberg’s new movie, since its components sometimes are on the edge to fall apart like a defect vehicle, but at the same time it contains scenes of great beauty as a noble art object.
With other words you cannot call “It’s all about love” to be very successful, but not the less not as a failure either. More like a grand and rather shapeless torso of a movie, more ambitious than the fundament can hold and sometimes on the edge of a fatal collapse, but with shining magical moments of talent and originality.
The movie takes place in New York in 2021 and is about the Polish academic John Marczewski and his wife the famous skating star Elena. They had left each other 6 months ago and now John arrives to The Big Apple to get Elena to sign the divorce papers. He was suppose just to pass by since he is on the way to Canada, but Elena is having some mysterious problems so he stays. For one week.
We know that because John’s voice in the beginning of the movie announces that he now will tell about the last 7 days in his life. And by that we also know that the story will have a tragic ending, and even though the future New York looks familiar and not futuristic at all we soon realize that something is very wrong because by the escalator a dead man is lying that people just pass by without taking notice of.
What happens ? Well, the planet is out of balance and cosmic disturbances is taking place. People are dying on the streets, allegedly because of the lack of love. The snow is falling in July, not only in New York, but also in Venice and Paris and at one point all the fresh water is frozen into ice, even in a water glass. In Uganda the gravity has been neutralized, 2000 people have lost their lives and people are floating around in the air, which we get to see at the end of this movie’s very odd picture.
In this semi apocalyptic frame more full of symbols than persuasion, the story is being told about Elena’s evil skating managers that plan to replace her on the ice with clones and replicates that looks like her. Elena has a heart condition and plans to stop her career and the managers has decided to liquidate her – inclusive John since he has decided to help her after the rebirth of their love.
Without having seen through what is going on in this dark tale that reminds about David Lynch, John and Elena escapes together. At first to a filthy hotel in Brooklyn. From here the story starts to dissolve if you look at it with logical eyes, but at the same time it reaches a unforgettable and masterly directed moment in a scene where Elena and her 3 clones are exposed for an assassination while they are practicing on the ice to the beautiful aria “Una furtiva lagrima” from Donizettis opera . This scene contains most of the schism that characterizes “It’s all about love.” In one way extremely beautiful and emotional, in the other way you don’t understand how Elena who has been shot can continue her escape with John without so much as a wound. Does it make any sense at all ?? Not rationally, and as a combination as a futuristic fable, thriller and very romantic love movie, It’s all about love is definitely weakest as a thriller. The story’s uneven and inconsequent structure is very problematic and we can speak about a bad story very excellent told, because Thomas Vinterberg makes most of the scenes very dynamic, intense and full of ambiguous fascinating atmospheres.
He should just have chosen a better manuscript than the one he himself and Mogens Rukov had written, and of course there had to be something wrong with the movie’s fundament when the Cannes festival rejected it last year. Afterwards they began to edit the movie again and put in some new music. It seems like there has been a acute panic attack after the rejection and that can explain why the result not is very homogeneous and far from perfect.
You cannot blame the attractive young stars Joaquin Phoenix and Claire Danes, who as John and Elena make devoted performances without having the possibility to give the characters any special subtle psychological nuances, their very discreet Polish accent works pretty well and it is very refreshing political incorrect that both the hero and heroines smokes cigarettes in this movie.
More exciting is Douglas Henshall who plays Elena’s ambiguous brother Michael, is he loyal or a trader in this game ? – while you wonder what on earth Sean Penn is doing in this movie as John’s brother, who is a strange digression without any connection to the movie.
Sean Penn’s character is constantly on a plane, probably because he once got an injection against fear of flying, unfortunately they gave him an overdose, and now he cannot do anything else than fly. As a permanent passenger, he kind of philosophizes about the nature of life and he reaches the conclusion that “It is all about love.” Meanwhile John and Elena down on earth embody his statement by fighting through a huge snow covered mountain landscape on their way to the tragically finale á la Lars von Trier, and meanwhile people in Uganda are hanging in the air like balloons.
It is like a strange dream, a fatalistic vision of the difficult destiny of love in a restless and mad world, and this very powerful and visual side is the strength of the movie. The Polish composer and Kieslowski-veteran Zbigniew Preisner, does his best to get the metaphysical moods up, even though the music maybe is at its best when the giant orchestra now and then is replaced by a solo pianist.
It is very obvious that “It is all about love” is as different from “Festen” as two movies can be. But in spite the problems the movie has had during the production, the loose ends and very unlucky direction towards the pretentious, the movie is not a flop . It is very unclear thought but also very brave and its huge panoramic scenes appeals to a powerful and so far unknown side of Thomas Vinterberg’s obvious talent.
If you watch it as an entertainment story about greedy bandits’ cynical attack against a beautiful skating princess “It’s all about love” is frustrating and irritating, but if you watch it open minded as a hallucinating adventure about love and death it is undelivered in an heroic and fascinating way. It is not successful but definitely worth watching.
The word is not synonymously positive or negative. A fragile porcelain figure can be beautiful and precious at the same time, but on the other hand you don’t want to ride on a fragile bike. In both ways the interesting word describes Thomas Vinterberg’s new movie, since its components sometimes are on the edge to fall apart like a defect vehicle, but at the same time it contains scenes of great beauty as a noble art object.
With other words you cannot call “It’s all about love” to be very successful, but not the less not as a failure either. More like a grand and rather shapeless torso of a movie, more ambitious than the fundament can hold and sometimes on the edge of a fatal collapse, but with shining magical moments of talent and originality.
The movie takes place in New York in 2021 and is about the Polish academic John Marczewski and his wife the famous skating star Elena. They had left each other 6 months ago and now John arrives to The Big Apple to get Elena to sign the divorce papers. He was suppose just to pass by since he is on the way to Canada, but Elena is having some mysterious problems so he stays. For one week.
We know that because John’s voice in the beginning of the movie announces that he now will tell about the last 7 days in his life. And by that we also know that the story will have a tragic ending, and even though the future New York looks familiar and not futuristic at all we soon realize that something is very wrong because by the escalator a dead man is lying that people just pass by without taking notice of.
What happens ? Well, the planet is out of balance and cosmic disturbances is taking place. People are dying on the streets, allegedly because of the lack of love. The snow is falling in July, not only in New York, but also in Venice and Paris and at one point all the fresh water is frozen into ice, even in a water glass. In Uganda the gravity has been neutralized, 2000 people have lost their lives and people are floating around in the air, which we get to see at the end of this movie’s very odd picture.
In this semi apocalyptic frame more full of symbols than persuasion, the story is being told about Elena’s evil skating managers that plan to replace her on the ice with clones and replicates that looks like her. Elena has a heart condition and plans to stop her career and the managers has decided to liquidate her – inclusive John since he has decided to help her after the rebirth of their love.
Without having seen through what is going on in this dark tale that reminds about David Lynch, John and Elena escapes together. At first to a filthy hotel in Brooklyn. From here the story starts to dissolve if you look at it with logical eyes, but at the same time it reaches a unforgettable and masterly directed moment in a scene where Elena and her 3 clones are exposed for an assassination while they are practicing on the ice to the beautiful aria “Una furtiva lagrima” from Donizettis opera . This scene contains most of the schism that characterizes “It’s all about love.” In one way extremely beautiful and emotional, in the other way you don’t understand how Elena who has been shot can continue her escape with John without so much as a wound. Does it make any sense at all ?? Not rationally, and as a combination as a futuristic fable, thriller and very romantic love movie, It’s all about love is definitely weakest as a thriller. The story’s uneven and inconsequent structure is very problematic and we can speak about a bad story very excellent told, because Thomas Vinterberg makes most of the scenes very dynamic, intense and full of ambiguous fascinating atmospheres.
He should just have chosen a better manuscript than the one he himself and Mogens Rukov had written, and of course there had to be something wrong with the movie’s fundament when the Cannes festival rejected it last year. Afterwards they began to edit the movie again and put in some new music. It seems like there has been a acute panic attack after the rejection and that can explain why the result not is very homogeneous and far from perfect.
You cannot blame the attractive young stars Joaquin Phoenix and Claire Danes, who as John and Elena make devoted performances without having the possibility to give the characters any special subtle psychological nuances, their very discreet Polish accent works pretty well and it is very refreshing political incorrect that both the hero and heroines smokes cigarettes in this movie.
More exciting is Douglas Henshall who plays Elena’s ambiguous brother Michael, is he loyal or a trader in this game ? – while you wonder what on earth Sean Penn is doing in this movie as John’s brother, who is a strange digression without any connection to the movie.
Sean Penn’s character is constantly on a plane, probably because he once got an injection against fear of flying, unfortunately they gave him an overdose, and now he cannot do anything else than fly. As a permanent passenger, he kind of philosophizes about the nature of life and he reaches the conclusion that “It is all about love.” Meanwhile John and Elena down on earth embody his statement by fighting through a huge snow covered mountain landscape on their way to the tragically finale á la Lars von Trier, and meanwhile people in Uganda are hanging in the air like balloons.
It is like a strange dream, a fatalistic vision of the difficult destiny of love in a restless and mad world, and this very powerful and visual side is the strength of the movie. The Polish composer and Kieslowski-veteran Zbigniew Preisner, does his best to get the metaphysical moods up, even though the music maybe is at its best when the giant orchestra now and then is replaced by a solo pianist.
It is very obvious that “It is all about love” is as different from “Festen” as two movies can be. But in spite the problems the movie has had during the production, the loose ends and very unlucky direction towards the pretentious, the movie is not a flop . It is very unclear thought but also very brave and its huge panoramic scenes appeals to a powerful and so far unknown side of Thomas Vinterberg’s obvious talent.
If you watch it as an entertainment story about greedy bandits’ cynical attack against a beautiful skating princess “It’s all about love” is frustrating and irritating, but if you watch it open minded as a hallucinating adventure about love and death it is undelivered in an heroic and fascinating way. It is not successful but definitely worth watching.
Small bits from IAAL reviews from different Danish Newspapers :
