Opinions from 'non-danes'

I am an American married to a Swede, so we see all Scandinavian films that we can. I really didn't like this film at all, because I kept thinking, "This would never happen!" I just don't think the events in Afghanistan were at all realistic, and the man's reactions were also not believable (not to mention the fact that he apparently got no counseling or "debriefing" at all). And I don't think a 7 or 8 year old child would exclaim at the family dinner table, "Mom ****ed Uncle John" (or whatever his name was). I was sitting in the theater rolling my eyes about one-third of the way into the film to the end. To ask yourself, "After such and such, would this happen?" is irrelevant, when the first "triggering" event is not realistic. Two thumbs down on this one!

I saw it last year at the Filmfest in Hamburg and I absolutely loved it. But I love all the films that have "Anders Thomas Jensen" somewhere in the credits. ;-)

But you were asking about how we rate watching foreign language films. Since in Germany everything is dubbed, we don't have this "problem". People still get more attracted by big Hollywood productions featuring big movie stars, which is extremely sad.

I personally don't have a problem "reading" a movie and I prefer the actors' own voices. Especially in Danish since I love the sound of the language, but that's just me. :-P But here you have to "hunt" for screenings in the original language.

I'm from CA, I got done watching this movie a half hour ago and I loved it.

I've been watching a lot of Danish films for the past couple of weeks (hurray for Netflix) and I always felt refreshed after watching them. I started getting into it because I saw Mads Mikkelsen in King Arthur and thought he was really good. So I watched some of his movies, and Nikolaj Lie Kaas was in a lot of them, and I thought he was really good too. So now I've just been browsing through them all.

I was just saying to my friend the other day that it seems like foreign films have better portrayals of the characters and plots in general because there isn't a lot of special effects and big Hollywood crap going on in the background.

This movie was really good. When I read the plot I thought to myself: Okay, the brother and wife are going to end up in bed. But all that happened between them was a kiss. If it had been Hollywood there would have been some raunchy sex scenes. Case closed.

Also other foreign films: Open Hearts, Flickering Lights, The Green Butchers, Shake it all About, Wilbur wants to Kill Himself, Pusher. Although I know some of these didn't do too well in Denmark, I certainly enjoyed them anyway.

Subtitles don't bother me either. I'd take that over a dubbed movie anyday. I always have close captioning on my TV anyway, so it's all the same to me.

Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me...

My sisters and I ended up ordering this movie on PPV on accident. So, we sat through and watched it. And I must say that we really enjoyed it. It invoked such powerful emotions upon us, that at one point I seriously had to leave the room. Not that the movie was annoyin me, it was just that I couldn't handle it. Which really makes the movie such a great one. Sometimes I don't get the way 'Hollywood' works. Such intense, magnificent movies such as this are hadly well known... but trashy, corny, stupid movies get rave reviews and a lot of publicity. Oy Vey.

-Kerry The Pirate

I'm from Spain, and I really loved this movie. I was very imprressed by Ulrich Thomsen's performance. Like other reviewer, I was so affected by the movie that I need to leave the room one moment (guees when).

I have seen a lot of Scandinavian Films and my average opinion is that I love/hate 50% of your movies. I hate Dogma,Trier and his followers(except two or maybe three movies)because they think they are a gift from God to us, poor stupid morons that don't know what is the TRUE cinema.

The rest of the Scandinavian films are ussually very good, like the rest of the other great european cinematographies.

Forgive my poor english.

I'm from Canada.

A couple of years ago I got sick of the usual Hollywood movies that usually flood the mainstream cinemas. So I started going to indie art houses and seeing more foreign films. Open Hearts (another amazing film by Susanne Bier) was one of the first foreign films I saw. I just recently had a chance to rent Brothers and I loved it. Excellent job by all the actors and an excellent script which really examined family realtionships.

Anyway to answer your second question I'd probably choose a foreign film rather then a Hollywood film. Usually in order for a foreign film to find it's way to North American theatres it has to be the cream of the crop. Most foreign films that are screened over here have won numerous festivals and have been oscar nominated. Besides, I don't mind subtitles at all and if the films are in French or Spanish I can generally understand them fairly well even without the subtitles.

I'm from the Netherlands, and I really love Scandinavian movies. The acting is generally really top notch, and the characters and events are so much easier to relate to than the average American film. The characters and the stories just seem so much more familiar than with a US film. Which doesn't mean I don't like American films by the way, it's just that, being from the Netherlands, Scandinavia is a lot more familiar. :)

This movie was an excellent example; I really thought it was great.

I´m from Colombia. As all over the world, the Hollywood industry controls all the distribution channels. 30 years ago, we could see the last Truffaut films the year after their release in France. Today, very few european (or, in general, non-american) films are shown.

We normally have no problems with subtitles, because almost every film has them.

Yesterday I saw Brothers. It's spanish name is Verdades ocultas (Hidden truths). I really liked this film. I dont remember having seen a danish film before.