It is undeniable that the Danish director Thomas Winterberg, who was convinced by the film industry because of the "Family Banquet", has dedicated a thought-provoking and excellent film. Compared with 1998's "Family Banquet", The Hunt has a significantly larger pattern, reflects more events and characters involved in events, and expresses more collective and representative content and thoughts. Moreover, such a film that touches on the humanity of the group will remind fans of many masterpieces of this genre, such as the film "The Age of Passion", which is based on the stage play "The Witch of Salem" by the famous playwright Arthur Miller.
Like Salem The Witch, the film "The Hunt" is based on real life, and the content of the story is not easy for good people to accept. Usually, people believe that fairy tales are unscrupulous, even if this fairy tale is out of the rise of a moment of gambling, the credibility is not high, but the emotional "children's play" or in the so-called rational adult world has set off a "storm" comparable to the "elimination of witches by all". Thus, the personal life of lucas, the honest man who was placed at the center of the storm, was completely ruined, and the innocent man was isolated, despised and attacked by the people of the town, just like the pure-eyed deer he had hunted in the mountains. In a world of hypocrisy and viciousness, the hunter is also likely to fall prey, even with his closest relatives.
Lucas, a difficult actor played by the Danish film star Mads Mikkelsen, seems to be more difficult to interpret than the roles he has starred in in recent years, such as "The History of the Royal Family", "Flemon and Hitron", "After the Wedding" and other films, fortunately, Mickelson has a deep acting background, his grasp of each psychological aspect of the role can be described as accurate, and the scene in the Church on Christmas Eve that shows emotional agitation is easily and moving by him.
I have to say that one of the great advantages of Mickelson's acting skills is that he can show very well what the film's plot wants him to reproduce, whether psychological or superficial. This time, he cooperates with director Winterberg's calm way of telling the story, showing the role's silent and restrained and helpless tangled side from beginning to end, and many scenes seem to use only subtle ingenuity, but they appear to be full of power. Some commentators have argued that the film is Winterberg's best film since "The Family Banquet," and "a big part of what makes the film so good is Madders Mikkelson's stunning performance." (Quote from "Variety")
Under such a creative tone, the film as a whole appears depressed and gloomy, and such a viewing atmosphere makes some audiences full of a sense of justice feel as if they are holding a breath of grievance in their chests when they exit the lie, but they always have no way to complain, and at the end, they still have a sense of suffocation. The picture style of the film is realistic, the loneliness and calmness are a little poignant, and some of the mirrors also give people a sense of tragedy brewing in the calm. At the same time, the film's story structure is clear and thorough, the contradictions unfold step by step, especially the subtle tension caused by the overall atmosphere, all unconsciously form an invisible sense of oppression and restlessness, leading the audience into this town that emits a chill, and Lucas feels the anxiety and helplessness of being collectively excluded and reprimanded, even if the director who is calm has been tepid in the narrative, even if the liar lucas in the film also seems to be very calm, his personality is kind and wooden, rational and self-controlled, Even the words of the questioning are single and non-lethal, but this invisible sense of oppression and restlessness is always everywhere, which makes the whole film look particularly wonderful and quite evocative.
"Rumors are like rivers, with extremely narrow origins and wider downstream." In a small town with a small population, the spread of rumors is extremely fast. Ancient Roman Cicero said: "The common people rarely judge the value of things on the basis of facts, but often on the basis of rumors." The little girl's vindictive words quickly escalated into felonies among adults, and the viciousness of the "pedophile case" made people prefer to believe that they had, and by this time they had forgotten the Lucas they knew, and they began to question their previous judgments, even Lucas's best friend and neighbor. In fact, most of the time people do not care about the truth of the facts, they are only willing to quickly take sides to show their moral position, to lash out at the deviant ugliness, so as to exalt their own virtues, in the supermarket staff ban on Lucas or even a big fight, the film sharply and ruthlessly pulled out the dark side of human nature and the false thorn in social morality.
What is rare is that several translations of the film are quite meaningful, and its taiwan translation is "The Branding of Lies", as if to show that once a child tells an extraordinary lie, it will have a certain destructiveness, and the branding of the lie will always follow the lied. And the Hong Kong translation of "Witch Net" seems to reflect the hysteria of people to the point of crowds of gold, and the poor liar is like being covered by a net of lies, and cannot be relieved.
The empty gun at the end of the film seems to hint at the continuity of the event, and indeed, once such an event occurs, even if the suspicion is lifted, the hateful and extreme behavior will always linger in the life of the person concerned. The ceremony of Lucas's son's coming-of-age ceremony to receive a shotgun makes people realize once again how disturbed the adult world is. "There is too much malice in the world, but if we support each other, that malice will naturally go away." This sentence in the film is said to children, and at this time, it sounds like a fairy tale in the world.