“Another Round”, on Netflix, by Danish director Thomas Vinterberg, 2021 Oscar for best international film | The cup of oblivion

The approach may seem simplistic: four fifty-year-old teachers, tired of the life they lead, find in the consumption of alcohol more than an exhaust valve. They find a clear and simple reason for living. They take responsibility. They form something similar to an unofficial sect, in which the ethyl worship acquires the character of a ritual. They even have a remote guru, a philosopher who supports the thesis or excuse that human beings are born with a low percentage of alcohol in their blood, which must be compensated for with a few extra good drinks. Of course, as in Faust’s pact with Satan, this liquid paradise is accessible in exchange for a season in hell. A moralizing tale, then, which preaches a return to the fold? Neither, for two reasons. On the one hand, the enclosure called Denmark is represented for what it is: an enclosure for containing cattle. Other, Thomas Vinterberg, director of remembrance The celebration, be careful not to condemn anyone, with whom the matter becomes more dilemma than it seems.

Nominated for two Oscars in the latest opus (Best International Film, Best Director) and winner of the first, it’s strange the way Netflix starts Another round in Latin America. Suddenly, without warning, as if he had more than won an Oscar, he had lost them all. History teacher in a secondary school, Martin (Mads Mikkelsen, who knew to be a villainous Bond and Hannibal the cannibal and for Vinterberg was before the protagonist of The hunt) brings depression to the face and confusion to the brain. The nineteenth century mingles with the twentieth, and some of its students, absent as they may be, must remind it that the Industrial Revolution comes first and World War I later. From there to meeting the parents, there is only one step, and the director begins to worry. Over a dinner party with three colleagues, they switch from beer (the only drink Martin seems to indulge in) to French champagne and Smirnoff vodka, and one of them brings up this theory. It is followed a one-way street, as the daily alcohol limit recommended by their guru starts to seem a bit a bit to a group of friends.

Vinterberg makes the viewer complicit in the growing exultation of Martin and his friends, which includes the recovery of sexual desire, although, as is known, alcohol has a depressant effect on the cerebral cortex. Corn history opens cracks through which the everyday world creeps, with their resignations and their required loyalties. Too many gourds appear in the teachers’ locker rooms, Martin becomes violent one evening with his wife and son and, in one of the plausible challenges of a film that does not save them, one of the celebrants offers a student a sip of the vodka, to overcome his inhibitions before an exam. Until, of course, the hyperconsumption of the four gentlemen becomes a public scandal.

The Danish director, who of course knows how to film, has never been characterized by his subtlety. It’s about pushing things, it generates unlikely situations, like the aforementioned treat for the student or Martin’s historical tangles, at a time when his brain is not yet clouded with alcohol. We appreciate that unlike his most famous film, Another round do not accumulate abjections and abominations. Although some sins are paid for, yes, with death. What is well thought out is this vital trap that occurs between contemporary Danish society, with its very high standard of living and its patriotic hymns, and the passage from pleasure to slippage of the protagonists. As well as the adolescent condition of desire which moves them. Vinterberg is also right in the confrontation between the point of view of the libadores and that of their wives. These don’t seem like much, but when they do, it’s common sense. On the other hand, it is clear (and even said) that Martin and Friends’s club functions as a men’s club, and there are no plans to activate the women’s card.