What is life? It’s that youthful first love, a funeral and a party
“What is youth? A dream. What is love? The content of the dream.” These unforgettable lines, by Soren Kierkegaard, appear at the beginning of director Thomas Vinterberg’s Danish film, Another Round, which is playing at the Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff). But it’s almost as if they were written after watching another film that’s playing at Tiff — 20-year-old Suzanne Lindon’s French love story, Spring Blossom.
Lindon is the star of her film. She plays Suzanne, a bored 16-year-old girl in Paris who, on her way to and from school, lingers a bit in a cobbled, cafe-lined square, her eyes peeled for a 35-year-old dashing actor, Raphaël (Arnaud Valois).
Boys and girls her own age don’t interest Suzanne. She wants to be seen, by him. Raphael’s parked red scooter is an indicator that he’s inside the small theatre rehearsing a play. She doesn’t know that he too is bored. She doesn’t know that sometimes he is asked to play an Oak tree.
Spring Blossom follows Suzanne everywhere — when she’s with her friends, at home with her parents, or out with Raphael.
The film’s story, which Lindon wrote when she was 15, celebrates the heady concoction of uncontrollable joy, chuckles and tingles in a young mind and body while negotiating first love. It captures the shine and bounce that love brings, as well as the overwhelming confusion before that first breakfast date, and the shy, awkward moments at that date with the sort of lyrical swaying that the young in love are prone to.
As Raphael too begins to fall in love with Suzanne, they are locked in a moment. And just as she likes to linger in that square, Suzanne wants to linger in that moment too, sipping grenadine and lemonade.
Usually, love stories have trauma, drama, villains, loss. There is no turmoil, loss in Spring Blossom. Just the fear of losing that moment, that love.
Vinterberg’s Another
Round is about having lived those moments and then lost them to a job, a family, a house.
The film tells the story of four high school teachers of whom Martin (Mads Mikkelsen) is most obviously struck by a sadness that’s taken hold of his soul.
“Am I boring?” Martin asks his wife, and breaks down at a dinner with his friends. That’s when Nikolaj (Magnus Millan), a psychology teacher, talks of Norwegian psychiatrist Finn Skårderud’s claim that humans are born short of 0.05% Blood Alcohol Content, and to function at our best — physically, intellectually and emotionally — we must drink.
Martin tests this theory and his dull, confusing, rambling history classes become engaging, fun.
He tells the others, and on Nikolaj’s suggestion and pretence of taking notes for research, they all begin taking a few swigs before and during work. It helps initially, to smile, to take more interest, to reconnect with themselves, and to connect with others. But there’s temptation to drink more, and soon some relationships, lives begin to capsize.
Another Round is funny, sad, real, bizarre, scary, warm. And it’s message is simple — life is both, a funeral and a party. That’s why it ends on a glorious note, with a dance sequence by Mads Mikkelsen that will add two years to your lifespan.