The 2010 movie, The Revenge, or In A Better World for an English translation, is a poignant foreign language film based in Denmark and the work of Danish director Susanne Bier. It intensely touches on concepts like cruelty, revenge, death, hate, love and reconciliation.
I believe that while both titles fit the movie, they are worlds apart in portraying what the film is supposed to be about. Revenge is about all of the ways people are victimized and then seek revenge on those who have wronged them. Elias and Christian seek revenge on Sofus, who unrelentingly harasses the smaller boys. They also seek revenge on a mechanic who has attacked Elias’s father for entirely unwarranted reasons. The Sudanese villagers seek revenge on a war lord who has murdered and terrorized many in their community. So there very much is a theme of revenge in this film.
However, I prefer the translation In A Better World, because I believe it construes something the film also tries to: without this needless hatred, cruelty and violence, for instance, if we lived in a better world, the idea of revenge would have no place in the lives of all of these people. For me, the film, as this title signifies, was also about hope. Hope that someday there may be a better world where the idea of revenge is nearly non-existent because the pointless hatred and violence has dissipated. In other words, if we lived in a better world, things would be much different. Life would be more harmonious for everyone; from the children of rural Denmark to the villagers of Africa. This title, as did this film, brings across this point in a profoundly touching and beautiful way. I thought it was an amazing movie.
I also think this movie was very good and moving in a surprising way. And what I find most fascinating about this movie is the hopeful ending it gives to such dark and dangerous topics. If the title had stayed, The Revenge, I think the focus would have been more on the brutal retaliations main characters enacted for wrongdoings done to them. An important revenge that you left out is Christian’s revenge on his father. I feel certain that Christian was trying to find ways to get himself killed to hurt his father because he thought the father didn’t care that the mother was dead. Christian deliberately wants to handle Sofus on his own (with violence) in the hope that something bad would happen to Christian. And that is why he is so fixated on making a bomb and going on the roof of the building.
ReplyDeleteLike you though, I think In a Better World, is a much more appropriate title because it fits the overall message. You can be violent all you want, but until we learn to forgive and stop fighting, our world will never change for the better. This title makes you appreciate how everything ends in the movie instead of paying too much attention to the violence.
You must put your last name first in the title, Kaitlin, so I can keep track of blogs. Don't put it at the end Of the title
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