The Ape (2009)

Really Surprised!

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

A 30-something man wakes up in agony with blood in his hands and clothes, only to get up and carry on ahead through his day at break-neck speed, ignoring all signs of disaster. A fever-pitch intensity follows that escalates into claustrophobic desperation within a first-person-perspective: what the hell has occurred?! OK, imagine the worst possible personal tragedy occurring the night before to a character like that... well, I give you 2 guesses! In all fairness to filmmaker Jesper Ganslandt, but the scenario of what has happened in this Swedish thriller-drama is to me VERY obvious after 15 minutes. What is NOT obvious, though, are the surfacing, immediate reactions and actions of a person's mind after such a tragedy. And that turns this into a highly realistic, quite spellbinding state of shock for 80 minutes. The case-solving itself is not relevant, and for that reason, the greatest asset is a terrific and highly credible performance by Olle Sarri in the lead. He dissolves bit by bit in front of us through his 24-hour ordeal, like a modern-day Raskolnikov, but without the philosophical aftermath. So, we have indeed a thriller - but also a psychological drama.And there is my main quibble: with a story (and an ending) like this, writer-director Ganslandt also leaves out all surrounding details like backgrounds, bonds, motives, etc. It cries for a social commentary context and an epilogue. I know its enclosed format certainly makes material for tons of discussions, but it leaves me a bit wanting.All in all, quite impressive and a needful change of pace for the more poetic "Farväl Falkenberg"-filmmaker! 6/10 from Ozjeppe.

I put on this movie without having read a single word about it, something that helped elevate "Apan" over almost everything I've seen so far this year. I never saw Jesper Ganslandts debut "Farväl Falkenberg" either, so I did not know anything about this up and coming swedes intentions with getting in to the movie business until yesterday. What he has accomplished with "Apan" is capturing the main character Kristers, Played by Swedish actor Olle Sarri, total nervous breakdown. You can feel the tone set by Ganslandt from the very first frame, and that's only the start of a descent towards the absolute darkest depths of the mind acted out with perfection by Olle Sarri.If I were to compare what I experienced with this film to something else, the closest work would be Gaspar Noés "Enter The Void", in how the audience gets forced in to a character by means of filming and lack of added sounds and music. 20 minutes in, I felt the emotions portrayed by Olle Sarri, and how his decisions actually mattered to me. You become the broken individual on screen.If you are interested in seeing a fantastically well perceived narrative of a broken mans broken life, this is for you. If you are susceptible to this kind of film, you will feel as empty and broken as the subject of this portrayal when you're done.

There's always a recurring theme we witness in Haneke's films; life is brutal......and time to time, too painful to bear.No need to be a careful eye; director Jesper Ganslandt is a follower of Haneke cinematography, which is based on solid psychoanalysis of both borderline human nature and structure of society with a complicated resolution of history. This what Ganslandt does in this film.Krister is a man we see and pass by on the street in our everyday lives and also can be easily mixed with who we really are. An ordinary family man with a decent job and has what we call it a normal life. But, mostly, it's not what it seems above the surface. At the beginning of the movie, he wakes up in the middle of his own toilet with blood all over his clothes and place. Then we see him take off, do his everyday routine and go back home at the end of the day. And this is when we get it; the reason behind the blood on his clothes is a murder he has committed a night before. The murder of his wife and a plus. An attempted murder on his own kid.From this part of the film we see Krister dealing with his own personality, which comes down to characteristic resolution that consists on his own past and how he perceived the term family, how he's been treated by his own parents, especially the mother. The mother is always the key, as in our lives as well, she forms a perfect picture of Oedipus. As a man who can only communicate with people through his headphone and not in person, Krister isn't a successful example of out-of-closet personality, and having a hard time to integrate it with his life as he's known it thus far, and eventually, end up in destroying his own family which is pointing out destroying his own past, and especially, again, the mother.I think what makes this film stunning is that the amount of moments we see ourselves in Krister. Krister is who we are and who we are completes the character Krister wee witness in this movie. He can be any of us, if we consist on the theory of that most of us are homosexuals subliminally. This is a story of not being. Of not being yourself, not taking your sexual identity in your hands as you like......Of not being who you really are.

There are movies you will remember through your whole life, almost every second of them. These films aren't always good, not if you ask your tasteful experienced mind. But you can't get them out of your head.This is such a movie. It's about a very disturbed man. Probably he has done something terrible, but you can't be altogether sure. This is not about the action which has been and is to come, it's about a state of mind.Olle Sarri is absolutely splendid and I haven't seen such a performance in a Swedish movie for quite long. He doesn't make you feel good and the film has absolutely no intention to do that for you. But you can anyway don't get it out of your head.