In a Better World

If you thought The Secret in Their Eyes was an unworthy Foreign Language Oscar victor, this year’s winner may destroy your faith in the Academy altogether. It’s not bad, just not particularly good; lucky to get on the shortlist (Iraq’s submission Son of Babylon didn’t) and even luckier to survive when the list was whittled down to five (Japan’s Confessions got chopped).

In a Better World signals a return to Denmark for Susanne Bier after Things We Lost in the Fire, but not, alas, a return to form. As usual, big themes are arduously explored, but with less finesse: an African refugee camp becomes the venue for a White European’s reassertion of masculinity; while back home a child mourns his mother not with tears and tantrums but unfocused violence. Nominal attempts to forge global connections (in Denmark, bullying manifests in slaps from mechanics; in Africa, the mutilation of pregnant woman) ring as hollow as the Babel-aping wood-chimes on the soundtrack, and though the performances are excellent, it aint no Dogtooth. [Chris Buckle]