Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen) is a teacher for whom life has not gone too well recently thanks to his divorce, which has left him unable to see his teenage son as often as he'd like, just two days a fortnight, in fact. But maybe with the festive season looming things are starting to look up as he is beginning to persuade his ex-wife to come around to his way of thinking, recognising that son Marcus (Lasse Fogelstrøm) truly wants to spend more time with him, and a tentative romance developing between Lucas and his coworker at the school, Nadja (Alexandra Rapaport) which should set him on the right track. However, one of the pupils is Klara (Annika Wedderkopp), a troubled little girl...
Though not half as troubled as Lucas is about to be in one of the least Christmassy Christmas movies ever made. Its director Thomas Vinterberg had been through a patch of questionable quality in his works after making such an impact initially with possibly the best of the Dogme 95 efforts, Festen, but all was forgiven when he delivered The Hunt, a sensitive, unashamedly complex treatment of a difficult subject which nevertheless had audiences feeling a lot less than sensitive. Not that they were not traumatised by the deeply emotive approach as Lucas is falsely accused of child abuse at the school by Klara, and all because she had been worried by events in her own home.
She was not abused by anyone in her family, but an accumulation of details such as parents who keep fighting and a brother who shows her hardcore pornography as a "joke" serves to have her seek comfort with Lucas, who is one of the most popular teachers at the school. He gently rebuffs her clumsy advances and thinks nothing more of it, but all these things has Klara mutter something about Lucas exposing himself to her, which didn't happen but sets off alarm bells in the headmistress Grethe (Susse Wold) who starts an investigation. In one extremely well-directed but very disquieting scene, the girl is examined by a psychiatrist whose subtly leading questions make up his and Grethe's minds that a crime has been committed.
This in spite of Klara's increasing confusion about her story, and her gradual acknowledgement that the adults have got it wrong. Too gradual for Lucas, who almost immediately is launched into a nightmare of false accusations which almost everyone around him believes there is truth in. It's important to point out there are no villains here, as Vinterberg and his co-writer Tobias Lindholm were careful for us to understand everyone's motives and the trust they misplace, both Lucas's faith that he will be exonerated quickly by those who knew and liked him, and the belief the adults put in Klara's story which spreads among the other pupils until they are seeking attention by making up a story of their own. The idea that people, children included, can lie is not one which is easily coped with, and the fallout from a basic untruth is what concerned us here.
As the plot draws on, Lucas finds his son is standing by him, as is a friend with legal experience, but damn few else are, as if the locals are perversely content to accept the worst kind of news about one of their own when it appeals to their sense of outrage and the need for a scapegoat. With Lucas stuck in a confusion of anger, his own and others, he is allowed to walk free after questioning from the police who realise the lie doesn't fit any facts, but that doesn't stop the problem. If anything, it makes it worse, as he is assaulted, his pet dog is killed, and he is turned away from both friends and businesses who follow the "no smoke without fire" opinion to damage both the target of their ire and their own common decency. That the community is not as pure and innocent as it thought it was is not down to the issue of child abuse, but their embrace of debasing themselves by acting in a way they thought they could justify by taking the moral high ground. High ground which is a lot shakier than they would admit: as the film closes, the fear and suspicion prove stubbornly difficult to shake off. Music by Nikolaj Egelund.
Danish writer and director who graduated from short films to be one of the founders of the controversial Dogme 95 movement with his caustic family drama Festen. The next project of his to be seen internationally was the bizarre sci-fi romance It's All About Love. He followed this with gun drama Dear Wendy, another troubled family drama Submarino and provocative false accusation yarn The Hunt. The Commune was a semi-autobiographical tale of his upbringing. He won an Oscar for his grimly amusing drinking story Another Round. Vinterberg also directed the sleepy video for Blur's song "No Distance Left To Run".
