Love is All You Need -- CALL Discussion Notes

In Suzanne Bier's new film, a Danish hairdresser, Ida (Trine Dyrholm), has lost her hair and had a masectomy but appears to have survived her cancer. She comes back early from her chemo treatment to find her husband Leif (Kim Bodnia) bonking a young colleague Thilde (Christiane Schaumber-Muller). 
     Putting her pain aside, Ida goes to Italy alone for their daughter Astrid’s (Molly Blixt Egelind) wedding. She gets off on the wrong foot with the groom’s widowed father, the transplanted Brit Philip (Pierce Brosnan). Their tensions are paralleled in the about-to-be-weds. After registering his detachment from Astrid, groom Patrick (Sebastien Jessen) discovers he’s gay when he’s attracted to hunk Allesandro (Ciro Petrone). Leif -- perhaps some might say insensitively, but I don’t like to judge -- brings Thilde to the wedding. When he forces himself on Ida in a dance, Leif is decked by his one-armed soldier son Kenneth (Micky Skeel Hansen). The young couple break off their wedding after deciding they don’t want to live a lie. No longer with Thilde, Leif courts and wins Ida’s return. But when Philip comes to the salon to invite her to Italy she decides to give life another chance. She brings him her unopened letter from the hospital, reporting on the lump she felt on her neck. We don’t learn the contents of the letter -- because now it doesn’t matter.  In the first scene Ida spurns “breast reconstruction;” she ultimately reconstructs her life of love.  

Questions

1. How does this differ from most of the Wedding Comedies we’ve been getting lately? Is there a Danish/American difference here?
2. What was gained/lost in the title change from The Bald Hairdresser? That’s Den skaldede frisor.
3. What is the point in the parallel tensions between the generations, i.e., the engaged and their respective parents?
4. With a largely Italian setting and a British lead is this still a Danish film?
5. Why make Leif’s new girl “from Accounting”? Cherchez le metaphor.
6. What is the point of the dance references, e.g., the rejected tango shoes, the wedding shindig and its various couplings? Right after Patrick and Alessandro kiss we get a quick shot of Astrid dancing playfully with another girl.
7. Why is Philip in vegetables?
8. How/why does Bier contrast Copenhagen and Sorrento? Consider the opening shot, flat yellow high rises. 
9. Consider the colour symbolism in general, especially in the characters’ wardrobes. 
10. How does the plot benefit from the persona (the actor’s established screen image) of Pierce Brosnan? Consider how he changes from our first impression. Any echoes from Mamma Mia? Counterpoints?
11. What’s the point in the opening title dissolving like glittering dust?
12. Why make Philip’s sister-in-law Benedikte (Paprika Steen) so awful? How specifically is she pertinently bad? What does her comeuppance signify?
13. What is it -- romance or irony -- when the film opens with Dino’s That’s Amore -- cp Moonstruck, etc. -- and repeats its melody throughout?
14. What does the one-armed son signify?
15. How do later revelations deepen and explain early scenes, e.g., Philip’s explosive response to Ida’s collision, Astrid carrying Patrick over the threshold?
16. How is this film illuminated by any of the following (from IMDB) quotes from director Bier:

I use it [hand-held-camera] in order to enable actors to move around freely because I want them to be truthful at all times and that means they should be able to move and not be bound by a fixed camera position. I think if it's used for style it's a mistake. It's there to do something very specific.

[on the underlying premise of In a Better World (2010) (original title: Revenge): It's about the distance between being savable and not savable. At what point does redemption become impossible? Is there such a point? This is what we wanted to explore in the subtext of the story. I also think it's very interesting to trace the route of an innocent who actually behaves like a terrorist but is really just an angry little boy - an angry little boy who can also be dangerous.

My first job as a filmmaker is to not make a boring film. I don't see a conflict between art and commerce, but I do see one between boredom and commerce. I think once you start structuring according to theme, things become more educational than emotional, and I don't think that works. I think it really is about addressing the conflict between the characters and addressing the storytelling and psychology. That way, the feelings are the undercurrent of the whole story, which is exciting.

Reflect on the following lines of dialogue:

1. “I think Leif likes me as I am so long as I make him a lemon pudding every week.”
2. “Remember to get a receipt.”
3. “It’s been hard for me to see you so ill.”
4. “I just thought he was a dream.”
5. “The females are the worst. The men are all harmless. Their lives are absolutely without meaning.” What comes next?
6. “One tree can bear both lemons and oranges.”
7. “Botanically, the lemon is a berry.”
8. “No-one wants to be alone.”
9. “I’m just angry with everyone else.”
10. “Grandma said he had nice table manners.”
11. “Mom, why do you always crack jokes at the wrong time?”
12. “We’re not right for each other at this time.”