Christoffer Boe (Denmark, 1974) debuted with the amateurish
Reconstruction (2003), a frustrating experience due to a
simplistic plot that is presented as some kind of postmodernist puzzle
and due to a rather tedious narration,
annoyingly whispered in the tone of profound meditations.
The narrating voice introduces us to the story of a man and a woman.
Alex flirts with a woman in a cafe. He wants her to travel with him to Rome.
The way he talks to her sounds like
he's writing a novel or a movie script. And a philosophical one.
It works because they walk to a hotel room.
The narrating voice resumes the story from the beginning introducing the
four characters:
August (the narrator himself) and his wife Aimee,
Alex, a young photographer, and girlfriend Simone.
August tells us that Aimee and Alex are going to meet soon.
August and Aimee return home one evening and find a message from their friend
Monica who wants to hang out. Aimee is tired. August tells Aimee that he
finished his novel and decided how his characters are going to meet.
Alex is chatting with a friend about a dream in which he was dumping Simone
for another woman.
Alex wants to avoid Simone's father and leaves the house. Simone has doubts about Alex's love and chases him in the subway.
Alex sees Aimee in the subway train and keeps staring at her.
When she gets off the train, he gets off too, leaving Simone on the train.
He follows her to a cafe and flirts with her (the first scene).
She complains that he is five minutes late.
He wants to travel with her to Rome.
He asks her if she made a decision and she asks for more time.
They sleep together.
When August returns home, he guesses that Aimee cheated on him.
Alex returns to his apartment but finds that the door has been removed.
He asks a neighbor for help but the neighbor doesn't recognize him and
doesn't understand what he's talking about.
Meanwhile, August is asking his wife Aimee to leave for a trip with him but they are interrupted by their friend Monica.
Alex takes a taxi to see his friend Leo but Leo and his wife don't recognize him.
He runs after Simone but she claims that she never met him before in her life.
His own father doesn't recognize him.
Alex wants into a restaurant and asks for a table for two.
Aimee walks in but doesn't seem to recognize him either.
However, she asks if she can join him.
Her husband August followed her and watches them through the window of the restaurant.
We see August interviewed on television: the interviewer is asking him about love, a frequent subject of his novels. He is a famous novelist.
Alex and Aimee runs out of the restaurant without paying the bill.
August runs after them, unseen.
Now she's willing to travel with him to Rome but first she has to say goodbye
to somebody.
Aimee meets with her husband but he doesn't let her talk: he gives her a copy
of his new book and she reads that it is dedicated to her.
August wants Aimee to travel with him, apologizing for not having been a good
husband to her, but she refuses, runs away and throws away his book.
Meanwhile Alex bought the tickets for Rome.
Aimee is packing.
Monica comes to ask Aimee where August is. Monica guesses that Aimee is about
to dump August and tells her that August would not survive the trauma.
Aimee has prepared a farewell letter to August.
Alex says goodbye to Simone, who still doesn't remember him but is amuse
and weirdly attracted to him. Simone asks him to kiss her.
Meanwhile Aimee has been waiting a long time at the usual cafe.
Alex calls the cafe, but the bartender doesn't see Aimee even though
she's standing in front of him.
Aimee leaves before he can get there. Alex is desperate.
And now we see that August is writing about Alex and Aimee, about what
is happening between them, about the fact that Alex is losing her.
Then we see Alex chasing Aimee who is now with her husband.
Aimee doesn't recognize him and tells him that she is leaving
with her husband the following day.
Alex walks away alone and August's narrating voice informs us that it's all a film, a construction.
Allegro (2005)
Offscreen (2006)
Everything will be Fine (2010)
Beast (2010)
Sex, Drugs & Taxation (2013)
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