Allegro (2005) Online

The Danish film, "Allegro," is that rare science fiction film that uses only the barest minimum of special effects to tell its story (a slight wrinkle in the picture is about as high tech as the filmmakers are willing to go). Instead, the fantasy and surrealism play out almost exclusively in that far more intriguing venue known as the Theater of the Mind.

Zetterstrom (well played by Ulrich Thomsen, who appeared in the excellent "Brothers" a few years back) is a concert pianist who has never been able to find true happiness in his life, even after he's met and formed a relationship with Andrea (Helena Christensen), the supposed woman of his dreams. Zetterstrom may be a brilliant musician, but he suffers from an innate distrust of other people, including those who are nearest and dearest to him. When Andrea decides to up and leave him virtually without warning, Zetterstrom imposes a form of amnesia on himself that effectively wipes out all memory of his life prior to her departure. At the same time - and this is where things really get strange - the section of Copenhagen where he was born and raised undergoes a bizarre transformation, suddenly becoming cut off from the rest of the world by some inexplicable supernatural force. Though no one can physically enter this area - now officially re-named The Zone - Zetterstrom is determined to force his way in, when, after ten years of not being able to recall his past, he begins to suspect that his memories may actually be residing in that mysterious place.

Needless to say, this is not your average science fiction movie, nor is it your average tale of lost love. But by combining these two usually distinct genres into a single story, director and co-writer (with Mikael Wulff) Christopher Boe has come up with a work that is both thought-provoking and haunting in its otherworldly strangeness. Zetterstrom wanders through the maze of this "pseudo" city like one in a trance or a dream, searching for clues to his forgotten past and trying to figure out the identity of the strange woman (Andrea) who flits in and out of the shadows of his imagination.

The message of this strange little parable seems to be that even the most tragic events of our lives make up a crucial part of who we are - and that any effort to dull the pain of those events by tucking them away in a corner far out of reach of our memory only winds up diminishing us as a person in the end. Zetterstrom learns that lesson the hard way, but at least he does learn it. It reflects well on the filmmakers that they've presented their case in as uniquely fanciful and absorbing a way as they have in "Allegro."

Inspired by having seen the provocative Reconstruction last year, I watched Allegro last night and found it to be just spectacular. I think Boe is one of those amazing Renaissance people, whose skills crossover like blossoming fireworks.Above all else, I appreciate his concepts, which become his story lines.Supporting them is his very idiosyncratic visual style. The film is dark and moody, like its protagonist, and there is little dialogue. Long contemplative shots are frequently interrupted by a barrage of split-second images- the equivalent of memory flash cards. The cartoon story that plays during the film's introduction- tells the simple story one is about to see unfold. It's basically a one sentence story about the necessary role that deep feelings play in the life of any great artist. I see that simple story as a spider, and the ensuing film as the web around the spider. I particularly like it that the narrator clearly tells us, at the very beginning, what the film is about, and then we spend the next hours watching that spider web be built and travelled. What a fascinating world Boe creates.

I must say I am very surprised to have not seen much IMDb discussion of this film . I only hope that many more people will soon have the pleasure of its experience.

This Danish film tells us the story of an accomplished pianist, Zetterstrøm (Ulrich Thomsen), who returns to his native Copenhagen after spending 10 years abroad. Zetterstrøm is a virtuoso who is depicted as cold and emotionally detached man with a mysterious past. Upon his return to Copenhagen, he is lured to visit a segregated part of the town by an enigmatic invitation for a dinner. The 'place' is denominated the 'zone' and is where he used to live. Upon his return to Copenhagen, Zetterstrøm is overwhelmed with fragmented and 'undigested' memories and images from his mysterious past that he desperately tries to suture into a coherent narrative. The film depicts the intimate relationship between memory and identity (in the film, Zetterstrøm is hidden from the audiences during the concert). Despite not finding the acting excellent (I've seen a lot better from Ulrich Thomsen and Helena Christensen's debut performance was too insipid), I have to say that the film is conceptually very well structured. I found the cartoons and the 'timeline' very clever contextualising Zetterstrøm's perfectionism and 'sealing-over' (young boy putting a doll inside a box). The soundtrack is outstanding with classical compositions. The only negative aspect was that, at times, the film offers far too many explanations that are unnecessary and 'kill the romance'. I also found the long contemplative shots too 'cheesy' for my taste. On the positive note, I thought it was very clever the way compartmentalisation and dissociation were portrayed. His memories were 'isolated' and 'segregated' in the "zone" – forbidden and inaccessible area, which is surrounded by a façade - 'the zone' is both a geographical part of Copenhagen i.e. ghetto (political critique and social dimension) and a part of Zetterstrøm psyche - its' interiority and content. The 'Policemen' were outside the perimeter due to the presumed dangerousness of the 'zone', despite its inaccessibility. The 'zone' has oneiric qualities i.e. symmetrical logic, and is accessed through a 'public toilet' in a modern version of Wonderland. The streets and canals have an atmosphere of uncanniness which is perfectly constructed. The part where Christensen's corpse is emerged from the canal by the rescue team, the sutures in her abdomen reminded me of something grotesque and frankensteinian. In the last part of the film, Zetterstrøm tries to play his composition and the symptom 'emerges'. There is a clever 'displacement' and a 'return of the repressed'. Zetterstrøm is unable to play in tune - as he lacks 'emotional attunement' and no longer just emotionality in his interpretation. Overall, it's a very interesting and clever film, worth watching.

I'm a big fan of existential folly in film, especially having completed many of my own. Zetterstrøm is the main character in this movie, a world-renowned pianist from Denmark. Since childhood, he is an assiduous "forgetter" of everything except his piano playing. This is to say that he stores up his disappointments, forgets them, and retreats behind a piano. After a love affair that ends due to his emotional constipation, he uses his facultative amnesiac skills once again, and this act is one step too far, so inimical to the fabric of reality, that a rent in reality is formed over three city blocks, and becomes referred to as the "Zone".

Zetterstrøm buries himself in his solitary existence of piano-playing, quite literally performing concerts in the dark, or behind screens so that the audience cannot see him. Shadowy figures draw Zetterstrøm back to the zone, unwilling to allow his non-confrontational existence to continue. Zetterstrøm must be made to confront his past.

It's a fascinating film, the narrator lets us know that it's Zetterstrøm's very brilliance which allows him to annihilate himself, that allows him to inoculate himself from reality.

I'm in absolute adoration of films that attempt to make visual metaphors of the human mind, such a film is this (the Zone fulfils this purpose), Tarsem films such as The Cell and The Fall are others. There is no subject more sacred, more revelatory as regards human potential. There's a scene where Zetterstrøm sits and has dinner in an ornately plastered ballroom. The windows and floor are all blacked out with plastic sheeting, and the room is covered in latched boxes loaded on pallets, representing Zetterstrøm's repressed past, there's also a cage with globes of light in, recognising the potentiality of his mind.

When there's narration we also see some very nice cartoons with Zetterstrøm as a child, that's another metaphor I'm very fond of from The Cell, that many of us are still children inside, just wounded, subdued, and with horrid barriers put up. You may have guessed that this movie moved me deeply.

This film is one of the most over explaining and clumsy symbolic films I have seen in a very long time. It is simply straight out boring because it tries to be so "mysterious" all the time, but in fact it is quite a simple and unoriginal story. They are just trying to make it more interesting by using a lot of very heavy symbolism, instead of going in depth with the real story or the characters. It's very superficial and film school like. And almost everybody in the cinema were either sleeping or leaving before the film finished. And I wished I had done the same after wards. I just kept on thinking that something would happen. But it just didn't.

Also the fact that Helena Christensen really can not act, even though she is very beautiful, is a big problem for the film. Being a photo model is obviously something very different from being an actress. It seems like the director just wished a beautiful face instead of a real character, and that is maybe more or less the problem of the whole film. It's not like for example a David Lynch film where you can feel that the mystery comes from something real. Something that the film maker actually knows something about.

I don't understand how the previous reviewer could accuse this film of trying to be too mysterious and of being "overexplained"--these seem inconsistent to me. For my part, I found it straightforward and a bit didactic but I do think the psychological phenomena it pointed to are worth thinking about. Those who remember "Reconstruction" will find this exercise similar in style but less ambitious. It does have its flaws--for example, the devices used to attempt to generate suspense are not very effective. I would say this film succeeds more at getting those in the audience who are attuned to the questions it raises thinking than it does as pure entertainment.

I went out from the cinema crying. The movie, as all movies in my opinion, removes inside you what you let be removed... I am only 28, and yet, this movie reminds me of how many memories I want to hide, forget, just because my life is based on "keep on living, keep on acting as you decided, don't turn back, because this is imperfection". I don't think the movie is excellent, but it has a specific message (art is made of passion and passion is made of each one's history) and it knew how to express it, how to deal with this psychological side each one of us has. Also the music, mainly J.S. Bach, is beautiful. This is the kind of movie that I would call "of the moment", maybe you won't remember it in a few months, but it inspires you and lives with you unconsciously as a psycho therapy does.

Zetterstrom, a talented pianist, is seen at an early age playing a composition for his teacher. His career that takes off because of his talent, comes to a crossroad when he meets the beautiful Andrea one night when he is locked out of his apartment. It is obvious he loves her, yet, one notices a certain lack of commitment on his part. Andrea's love for Zetterman will end up in tragic consequences.

The pianist goes to New York, where he is well regarded for his brilliant technique, returns to Copenhagen where things have changed dramatically. There is a part of the city that has been cut off from the rest where no one is allowed to enter. Zetterstrom is asked to visit a mysterious man and he is given secret instructions in how to get in "The Zone". His memory, it appears, has left him. As much as he tries, he doesn't seem to reconnect with his past.

Zetterstrom receives an invitation to come to the Zone. Once there, the pianist meets a man in a wheelchair who instructs him to drink from a glass. He is leery, but decides to go along. What happens is that Zetterman's talent for playing the piano is gone forever as we searches in vain to regain it. Snippets of his past are seen in flashes leaving him frustrated because suddenly, he knows what went wrong in his relationship and personal life.

"Allegro", Christoffer Boe follow up after "Reconstruction" is an ambitious movie trying to combine on elements that we have seen in other films. The director goes into a territory that has been explored by other movies of the same subject. "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Alphaville" two other movies that come to mind, must have inspired Mr. Boe in his conception of the material. Best of of all is the cinematography of Manuel Alberto Claro that serves the story well.

Ulrich Thomsen makes an appealing Zetterstrom and perhaps the best excuse for watching "Allegro". Gorgeous model turned actress Helena Christensen doesn't have much to do, although her part is not as important. Hennig Moritzen, who appears as Tom, makes an excellent contribution.

I just had the chance to check out this excellent Danish film from 2005 that is just now being screened in our area, after a two year wait (better late than never). Allegro is a dreamy allegory about a (somewhat) eccentric concert pianist who left his home country after a failed romance, only to return there after receiving word via post card that his memories have been kidnapped and are being held in a metaphorical area called "the zone" in Copenhagen. What results is the pianist trying to come to terms with his past. The bravura cast is made up of Danish actors,who I had never heard of before,as was their director/co-writer,Christopher Boe. Without revealing too much more, I would have to say that Boe's style of directing reminded me if Jean Cocteau returned from the dead, and had the chance of directing one more film, and opted to make that film for DOGME productions, it would look a whole lot like Allegro (it has that DOGME look, i.e. a grainy, kitchen sink,almost home movie kind of look,which is what I always admire about DOGME---what ever happened to DOGME productions,anyway?). This film will entrance some, while others will scratch their heads and say "what the hell is this all about?". What I also admired was the fact that the film is not just all seriousness. It has a sense of humour,too. You may have to do a bit of searching around to find this little understated gem (it's probably best seen on a theatrical screen, proper--but DVD will work, too), but will be well worth seeking out.

Don't hesitate: watch this rare Danish movie, it's anything but typical and a delightful twist of standards in the Danish movie trends of today.

"Allegro" has this unique story that surprises and wants more than just to amuse and please: this script is simply very well written and surely ends up like nothing you've seen before.

This film is anything but boring and one of the highest recommended Danish feature films at the time being!

Really challenging and far from typical Danish, great acting and many surprising twists.

Following the Cannes Camera D'or winner, "Reconstruction", Danish director Christopher Boe has made a new unusual film:

Allegro

Filmed primarily with hand-held camera, the picture is almost as gritty as some Dogme 95-movies. The camera is slightly shaky and keeps fast-zooming at faces all through the movie: Faces are important. Looks are important. Ulrich Thompsen (The Celebration) is the main character, the pianist Zetterstrøm, who is the person, around whom the film centers. Zetterstrøm is not really living life and playing piano, rather he is playing piano and living life through his piano. He is the archetypical introverted person, who lives in his own world, keeping distance to other people and of course love. A chance meeting with a beautiful woman, played by Danish supermodel Helena Christensen, alters his life, but his unbalanced self cannot truly recognize or accept his own feelings, so they part.

10 years later - the movies starts. A voice-over by Henning Moritzen (The Celebration, Cries and Whispers) tells us that Zetterstrøm has forgotten about his past, that he is even more secluded from the world of feelings and drawn into perfecting his piano playing. The Voice-over is also a character in the film - Tom, in all probability some fictitious person made by Zetterstrøms own mind.

Tom wants Zetterstrøm to retrieve his lost memory. This is the central quest of the film.

Materialized in the middle of Copenhagen is The Zone - the area, where Zetterstrøm and the woman parted has now turned into a deserted zone, where people can't enter. The "walls" of the zone can't be entered. The Zone is a picture - something you can see, but not touch. The Zone is Zetterstrøms memory, his past.

An abstract story now unfolds, as Tom and his assistant invites Zetterstrøm back to Copenhagen, where he gets the chance of entering The Zone. On a semi-realistic level, Zetterstrøm returns to Copenhagen to play a concert - and this mix of abstraction, materialized psychology and realism continues throughout. --

The voice-over is constantly guiding us, but as it is also analyzing the immediate situation for us, we as audience have to think ahead of it; There's more to the film, than the voice-over tells us. The mood is very dark, very abstract - the intro somehow reminds of Bergmans "Persona", although not as Freudian in it's symbols - and the film seems very focused. It has a nostalgic feeling to it - Zetterstrøm wandering alone in a secluded world, as walking in his own self. The symbols are everywhere - symbols of past, symbols of love, symbols of frame of mind. It's very scary, although funny at certain points - the script is done by Danish stand-up comedian and quite intelligent-wise gifted, Michael Wulff (who worked with Boe on an Art House comedy-series called "Kissmeyer Basic"). The humour may be thought of as getting the mood in imbalance one or two times, but otherwise it's quite nice.

The acting is superb. Ulrich is playing his favourite kind of role - introverted, mostly quiet and Bill Murray-like, sometimes shouting. His play opposite Helena, making her debut on the big screen, is fabulous - she really has the perfect eyes and voice for this dream-like character. Also Henning Moritzen is perfect as The all-knowing guy, who is teasing us.

Not flawless, but this movie is yet an interesting film from the new major upcoming danish film director, Christopher Boe.

Highly Recommended: 8/10

Allegro is an ample Danish drama with redemption at its core, a film arriving with some extravagant ideas and some far reaching ambitions which, for the best part, combine reasonably well. The piece is a constructive and involving character study; a film with an uplifting politic at its core about identifying the importance of one's foundations and of where one came from and a film about the power of memory. Above all else, the film relies on a great deal of surrealism and generally off-kilter content to prop up what is a somewhat simplistic tale of one man returning to his roots so as to eventually confront past mistakes. In short, the surrealism here comes across heartfelt and necessary; it doesn't overwhelm the text as it does in something like Inland Empire. We, the audience, are not buried nor bombarded with a series of tricks or gimmicks – there are no near-unencryptable semiotics plaguing what might very well be a simple story simmering beneath the surface, although both shot and told by an individual too interested in bewildering and alienating. On the contrary, Allegro is passable science fiction applied to a digestible premise somewhat resulting in an enjoyable piece about a man returning to a place, in which he experienced mostly negative life experiences, to do good this time.

Ulrich Thomsen plays the adult incarnation of Zetterstrøm, a young boy from Copenhagen when we first see him, whose snow cone always comes loose from its foundation only to fall on the floor and whose rides on fair ground attractions pack up the moment he gets on them, such is the hard-luck nature of his childhood existence. During these opening segments, of which are nicely animated, he additionally happens upon two things: the equally young Andrea (Christensen) and the creating of piano music. Andrea is good to him; a beacon of light where there was dark. Zetterstrøm then proceedings to abruptly terminate one of these two things, specifically Andrea's presence, when he up's and leaves to pursue his musical career in America in a black hearted fashion.

As years roll by, and either party grow into adults; Zetterstrøm doing well as a musician in his field, Andrea staying where she is, something mysterious befalls a district of their childhood stomping ground, the Danish capital. Principally, a bizarre field of energy causes global news when it lands and both engulfs as well as surrounds a section of the city, thus trapping the people already in there and stopping those on the outside from entering. This part of Copenhagen is re-branded "The Zone", a place terrorising its inhabitants on arrival with bright reds and blue hues flashing around uncontrollably and housing what appears to be diegetic music sounding like the sort of stuff Steve Roach might compose on an off day.

Fittingly, Zetterstrøm is due to return to Copenhagen for a concert stop; he departs America for Europe again, checking himself in his New York City hotel mirror in what is a telling moment of self-reflection in a literal sense with room to grow into a metaphorical one. Later, he will have to confront his own reflective self upon entering this "Zone" when the entering through a restroom mirror takes place. It is here the film mutates into a tale telling of his return, his curiosity and his uncanny interactions with an array of people; not least a glasses wearing man of some age whom seems to think getting Zetterstrøm into The Zone by any means would be a good idea. Further links to the aforementioned Lynch, creator of Inland Empire, rear up here when we think back to a similar character in his 2001 film Mullholland Dr. The writer/director for Allegro, a certain Christoffer Boe, whose ideas here frustratingly outweigh execution, at this point pumps his film with as much life as it ever possesses throughout; paying meek homage to Andrey Tarkovskiy's 1972 film Solyaris and eventually formulating his piece into a film about a guy heading into the unknown to try and tackle why it is certain things are happening - the stumbling across items much more personal and affecting than he first envisaged additionally rearing up.

Allegro is good value for what it is, a story we are able to wrap ourselves up in; off-the-wall content which does what it's supposed to do and remain looming in the background as this central tract of a man righting wrongs takes centre stage. The sense of there being this respective infrastructure to a creative, avant-garde element inserted into proceedings which has its own effect on surroundings we are familiar with feels additionally persistent. There is enough of a sense of adventure as he attempts to seek Andrea, flitting between the inner and outer Zone locale, and whilst the film does not have the power nor the majesty I think it perhaps deserved, Boe strikes us as a creative and enthusiastic filmmaker – the sort of person unafraid of setting bars high but at the same time, both eager and able enough to stick to rigid ground level ideas of character study and generic frills. Here, they total up into a substantial film watching experience.

There's a fine and potentially powerful sci-fi-as-metaphor idea at the heart of this film: the notion that the painful memories you wish to repress might be actually taken from you and placed somewhere ("The Zone," a la Tarkovsky's Stalker).

The trouble is, the film is not told from the point of view of the protagonist. His emotional journey would have been powerful if the audience had been *asked to share it.* Why can't I remember more than ten years back? What happened ten years ago? What connection, if any, does my memory lapse have with the mysterious region in my former home city called "The Zone"? Who is the woman in this picture: might she be a lover I have somehow forgotten? Unfortunately, while all of these things are puzzling to our hero, the answers have already been spelled out for us, because the story has been told in a linear fashion, and is actually narrated by an omniscient voice who explains everything point-by-point, essentially before it has happened. This greatly reduces the movie's emotional impact: we are now a passive observer rather than an active participant.

It is, in other words, the anti-Memento. I've long been championing the artistic cause of puzzle movies like that one, and Donnie Darko, Eternal Sunshine, and Upstream Color ... because real life is a puzzle that lacks an omniscient narrator. I wish Boe had trusted his audience much more and dared to tell this from the proper POV: that, and better casting of the female lead, would have made this an 8/10. As it is, it is worth seeing more as an argument in favor of more challenging narrative structures.

I have to say that the strength of this movie is it's simplicity. It's beautiful in a very obvious way which really hits you right in the eye. The whole movie has some sort of delicate aura draping it and although the acting, as stated by other reviewers, is not a state of the art, the music and the very beautiful footage makes this a film well worth seeing.

The story is not complicated at all. It uses a lot of symbolism and the movie writer is obviously trying to trigger our imagination by jumping in time and place (in the same style as many filmmakers before him such as Spike Jonze and Michael Gondry) trying to make the moral statement of the film looking more complex than it really is.

This is a beautiful movie, it has some original touches such as the drawn episode and hopefully you will leave the cinema feeling the same way as I did, with a warm feeling inside and the beautiful music still playing in my ears.

I think one of the biggest challenges all the filmmakers of the world have to confront is transforming a good idea into a solid and entertaining movie.I think that thing almost destroys Allegro,which starts with an ingenious idea,but the film has difficulty in keeping it interesting in 88 minutes.I think the concept behind this movie would have worked better in a short.The main idea behind this movie has been used in The Twilight Zone and that idea totally fixed in 30 minutes.With some differences,we see that idea in almost one hour and a half of running time and,in spite of that,director Cristoffer Boe shows some good scenes and an excellent visual presentation but the film gets a little bit boring and,on some moments,I felt it was going nowhere.The ending is good,but for landing on that,we had to see redundant scenes and some tedious moments.Allegro had an ingenious idea and I totally appreciated that.But the film found difficulty to develop it and there are some tedious scenes.I can recommend it without too much confidence.

It was a big surprise that I gave this movie. When you think because a photograph is more important than a drawing, in the sense that the picture does capture a moment and freeze-it for all eternity, drawing, photography is made stronger, the film exploits this fact into something dramatically essential to put an omnipotent narrator in the argumentation, which is extremely interesting. Note that does not follow the structure of classical cinema, therefore understanding becomes a challenge, challenge for the viewer who expects to have more elements with which to rebuild those gaps that are present in the argument, leading to an environment discomfort that unfortunately tends to boredom. Ulrich Thomsen's performance manages to articulate a meaning of forgetting how wonderful, considering it's not just forgetfulness, but also, hate, despair and love. In history we find characters that make no sense, that seem to abound, or better yet, seems to be missing something, something like the memories of humans, so variable over time, but strongly tied to the music, which is extremely strong important to understand and feel this film.

Either a person who does not understand any bit from the film, or a person who has a personal antagonism against the director can write that sort of a comment. Sorry, but this is, definitely, not fair...

Although the film is indeed has some progressive aspects, it cannot be evaluated as an "Art Cracked." Actually quite down-to earth story, and it is as real as anyone can face with a truth he/she had lost in his/her past as Zetterström is going through within the film.

The "poor acting" critique is another issue. It is a part of the symbolism the director is using within film. (I don't want to tell here about the story.)

The film is a must, not only for the ones within industry, but for anyone.