Kira's Reason: A Love Story

Freed from the artifices and tricks of filmmaking, the Danish directors following the Dogme doctrine--whose rules, among other things, require the use of only natural lighting and sound and forbid importing props to shoots, which must be done on location--have created a new kind of sparse, theatrical, intensely fervent storytelling. Ole Christian Madsen's Kira's Reason, a sometimes painfully intimate peek at a crumbling marriage, is a fine example of Dogme filmmaking. When Kira (Stine Stengade) returns home after a two-year hospital stay for a nervous breakdown, she finds the pieces of her once comfortable life difficult to pick up: in the face of her still volatile moods, her young sons are understandably nervous around her, while her husband, Mads (Lars Mikkelsen), may have had an affair in her absence. Infidelity, rage, passion, fear--all are part of the mix in the family's torturous attempts to rebuild itself. Stengade's bold, fearless performance is shockingly honest; Mikkelsen's, less demandingly showy, is a wonder of understatement and quiet, potent restraint. Together, they create characters deeply entangled with each other who are so palpably real you could turn the subtitles off and still understand them. Recommended. (M. Johanson)