Danish helmer Annette K. Olesen's third pic, "1:1," tells an all-too familiar story, admittedly with considerable craft. Housing project-set pic focuses on community tensions when a white teenager is found beaten unconscious and suspicion falls on a Palestinian whose brother just so happens to be dating the victim's sister. Timely subject about ethnic tensions may give pic extra legs at home and boost sales in Western Europe. Opening credits unspool montage about the building in 1960s of a vast high-rise spread on Copenhagen's outskirts, where the '60s utopian dreams have turned into impoverished contempo reality.
Here, single-mother social worker Sos (Anette Stovelbaek) is raising her now teenaged kids, hotheaded Per (Jonas Busekist) and pretty Mie (Joy K. Petersen). Permissive Sos lets Mie have sex with boyfriend Shadi (Mohammed-Ali Bakier) in her room, but he can't even tell his own immigrant parents from Palestine, Umm (Rose Copty) and Abu (Nassim Al-Dogom), that he has a Danish girlfriend.
One night, local security guard Ole (Brian Lentz) finds Per beaten into a coma on a project walkway. Shadi comes home to see his thuggish brother Tareq (Subhi Hassen), whose preparing for a big kickboxing bout, treating his friend Wisam's (Ahmed El-Daoud ) bloody nose. Shadi reckons Tareq was involved in Per's beating despite his brother's denials, while Mie intuits Shadi knows something. As Per's life hangs in the balance, suspicion starts to sour the young lovers' happiness, and Per's friends are itching to take revenge.
Although such outer-city-set stories are something of a novelty in Danish cinema, films about racial strife in the banlieues is practically a subgenre of its own in France (the best known being Mathieu Kassovitz's "La Haine"). Similarly, British realist filmmakers love a bit of kitchen sink-estate drama (for instance, Ken Loach's "Ae Fond Kiss..." and Dominic Savage's "Love + Hate").
This Scandinavian version of doomed cross-cultural love clashing with intolerance is similar, although the homes seen onscreen are more tastefully decorated. Even Sos' mother, Bonnie (Helle Hertz), makes understanding noises, just before she pressures her daughter to accept money to move to a "better" neighborhood.
Where Olesen, who previously worked with screenwriter Kim Fupz Aakeson, departs from the boilerplate is by laying more emphasis on the women in the story. Violence unfolds in the kickboxing ring, or is rendered by stylized freeze frames showing little blood. This may spell weaker word-of-mouth among young male auds.
Tech package is pro, with Kim Hogh Mikkelsen's widescreen lensing and Mick Raaschou's imaginative sound design repping the standout elements.
Camera (color, widescreen, high definition -to-35mmm), Kim Hogh Mikkelsen; editor Molly Malene Stensgaard; music, Kare Bjerko; production designer, Lene Ejlersen; costume designer, Helle Nielsen; sound (Dolby Digital), sound design, Mick Raaschou. Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (Panorama), Feb. 12, 2006. Running time: 89 MIN.
