Allegro

2005 "Allegro dwells on the romantic world in which character flaws and personal mistakes alter one's universe."
6.5| 1h28m| en| More Info
Released: 30 September 2005 Released
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Country: Denmark
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

Famous pianist Zetterström returns home to his native Denmark, to give a concert, just to find out that the choices he has made in his life have affected his love life greatly.

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Reviews

Jeanskynebu the audience applauded
Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful
Aryana Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
Eric M. Van 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.
johnnyboyz 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.
jotix100 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.
hyti999 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.

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