Cronica de Cinema
By Fabio Belik
June 21, 2022
HUMAN NATURE BARRING THE CIVILIZING PROCESS
To talk about Salvation, a western directed in 2014 by Kristian Levring, it may be more prudent to start by mentioning Dogma95, a cinematographic movement of which the director was a member. Not that there are aesthetic parallels between the canons created by Danish filmmakers in 1995 and this dark film, inspired by great classics of an American genre par excellence. What stands out are precisely the differences! It was to be expected that a Danish production, scripted by Anders Thomas Jensen – another exponent of Dogma95 who recently directed the film Crazy for Justice – would follow the "vows of chastity" agreed between him, Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg and Kristian Levring: no technological special effects, no sticking to a specific genre, no deviating from the fundamental values of the story, No underestimating the importance of performances, no producers and studios usurping creative power and making aesthetic decisions... The goal of the movement was to purify cinema and give back to directors the aura of artists they should proudly display.
It is true that the filmmakers of the Dogma95 movement never said that the so-called "vows of chastity" would be forever. It was just to detox! The important thing is creative freedom and the desire to make quality cinema. And that's what Kristian Levring showed in Salvation. His film comes as a tribute to the western, telling a story of revenge, loaded with violence and written in full compliance with the conventions of the genre – characters in search of justice, remote and grandiloquent landscapes, remnants of civilization trying to mediate the clashes between individuals...
For those who consider the Danish western an oddity or eccentricity, the director recalls that the genre has enough multicultural elements to gain universal reach. In the second half of the nineteenth century, during the conquest of the American West, half of the people who circulated there did not even speak English. Indians, Mexicans and immigrants from all over Europe infested the prairies and provided a pretext for the stories that made the party of directors such as John Ford, Sam Peckinpah, John Sturges, Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone, for example. And Levring goes further: he recalls that the Danes were not left out. There were countless people who emigrated to America and assumed the new nationality as a path of no return. The story he filmed speaks of revenge, but shows that there is a price to be paid for the killing it unleashes. Let's look at a synopsis of Salvation:
The film tells how Jon (Mads Mikkelsen), a Danish settler who has settled in the West, finally manages to bring his wife Marie (Nanna Øland Fabricius) and their 10-year-old son Kresten (Toke Lars Bjarke) to America. They arrive by train only to embark on a stagecoach and be brutally murdered by two criminals fresh out of prison. Jon kills the killers, but burns in pain for the lacerating loss – all in the opening sequence of the film. It turns out that one of the bandits killed by Jon is the brother of Colonel Delarue (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a land baron who leads a large gang of outlaws. To complicate matters, the bandit also left a widow, the mute Madelaine (Eva Green), whose thirst for revenge is gigantic. Jon will have to facethe insane fury of this violent duo and the connivance of a cowardly city, manipulated by Mayor Keane (Jonathan Pryce). By his side, he will only have the loyalty of his brother Peter (Mikael Persbrandt), his skill with weapons and the certainty that he has nothing left to lose.
Starting from this believable and engaging plot, Anders Thomas Jensen and Kristian Levring wrote a laconic script, with very few dialogues and a lot of action, as is customary in western classics. Without the need to establish expository scenes, the director indulged in the bold look, sometimes exploring the imperative of the landscape, sometimes framing the expressive faces that enriched his cast. Of course, the highlight goes to Mads Mikkelsen, an impressive actor, who manages to be Danish without losing his American cowboy features – or vice versa! But Eva Green, without speaking a word, also managed to build a powerful character.
Filmed in South Africa, by a troupe led by Danes, Salvation seems to deny the principles of Dogma95. The locations are not real, the lighting is artificial, the shots are well studied, the camera movements are calculated... But there is a lot of truth in the scene. Kristian Levring has made a dark film, unconcerned with the psychological layers of his characters. It was at the level of primary emotions, because the story it tells us is about revenge. Hammering the theme, he takes the opportunity to show us the dark side of human nature and the difficulty that this imposes on the civilizing process. Here is a movie worth checking out!
Original title: The Salvation
Year of production: 2014
Director: Kristian Levring
Screenplay: Anders Thomas Jensen and Kristian Levring
Cast: Mads Mikkelsen, Eva Green, Jeffrey Dean Morgan,
Eric Cantona, Mikael Persbrandt, Douglas Henshall, Michael Raymond-James,
Jonathan Pryce, Alex Arnold, Nanna Øland Fabricius, Toke Lars Bjarke, Sean
Cameron Michael, Carl Nel, Sivan Raphaely, Grant Swanby, Robert Hobbs, Adam
Neill and Langley Kirkwood
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