Reconstruction
dir. Christoffer Boe
Palm Pictures
The mysterioso Danish romantic thriller Reconstruction has an adequate "Twilight Zone" twist
through which it intends to make its point about men (spoiler: They're dogs), but it also stands somewhat
apart because in most "Twilight Zone" episodes you'd feel silly for wondering about Rod Serling's motivation.
While the movie doesn't devote much energy to that curiosity, it does bring it up — a dangerous strategy for a
puzzle movie that's designed to invite such attention. The short of it: that Alex (Nikolaj Lie Kass) is having an
affair with Simone (Maria Bonnevie), wife of August (Krister Henrikkson), who learns he's being cuckolded. Coincident
with this but, as we're led to believe, not coincidentally, Alex becomes smitten with subway sighting Aimee (also Bonnevie).
This romantic crisis develops an existential bent — the trailer spoils it, but I'll spare you — and gains an extra layer of intrigue when August
reveals that he's taken matters into his own hands.
The clever-clever double casting of Bonnevie serves only to emphasize Alex's callowness — it's Aesop's
fable about the dog and the shadow, and, as previously noted, Alex is a dog. Kass inhabits the role well, although
Alex is one of those characters who smokes to indicate insufferability, and you never really warm up to him. (If in
practice you find the pickup spiels he feeds Aimee at the bar to be more effective than "Are you free tonight, or
will it cost me?" ask yourself if you've overestimated the clientele of your favorite watering hole.) Bonnevie serves
perfectly well as Alex's twin objects of desire, and Henrikkson is more than credible as the distinguished, older
hotshot who finds that the mere acquisition of a trophy wife doesn't excuse inattention.
But is Henrikkson credible as God, or at least Serling? That's what Reconstruction boils down to: The film
suggests that Alex undergoes his peculiar suffering because August — a renowned author — has written such a
fate for him. How fitting/ironic/curious that marriage/age/dispassion puts the hurt on infidelity/youth/metaphysical
sophistry, you might say, but that's only half the story. August suggests that tightening the screws on Alex is the
resolution to the "two strangers fall in love" novel he's been toiling on over the course of the film — since before
he even "discovers" the affair — and this is really where the stakes are raised. To be able to write Alex into such a
tight spot presupposes having written Alex into the story in the first place, and so the proceedings gain a sinister
dimension: Did Simone betray August out of adulterous passion, or did her husband "force" her to do so, whether
literally or literarily? Does Alex deserve scorn for his mopey indecisiveness, or can we lay some blame
at August's feet for perceiving his leading man at a level scarcely above parody? (August is such a bastard that he
gives Alex a swift kick to the stomach for succeeding where Orpheus failed.)
Even Jessica Rabbit caught onto this idea ("I'm not bad; I'm just drawn that way"). The shape of the movie suggests
it could step out of its canned disdain for Alex and ask real questions about the dramas that the self-righteous construct
for their own lives and the ways in which relationships and lives are doomed from the onset by one party's perverse
expectations. (Important novelists are, of course, famous for being terrible spouses, and August's physical and emotional
absenteeism is right in line.) Rather than poke at August's underbelly, though, the movie merely rises to its putative
author's level. Not that Alex should get a pass for his philandery, but his moony philosophizing and unsympathetic dilemma
(Bonnevie or Bonnevie?) only become movie-worthy when viewed as a trap, and Reconstruction frustrates by neglecting
the hunter. Great puzzle movies are bigger than the game, but this one has its feet firmly planted on the board.
— Sean Weitner (sean@flakmag.com)
