This woman is a master. Her version of Brothers was way superior to the American remake and After the Wedding is stunning. She got screwed when she came here and made Things We Lost in the Fire.
The film played at Sundance, it is nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film and just won the Golden Globe. Later this month she is the front runner to win the Oscar, so maybe we will actually see a woman director get up and be acknowledged for her film.
Film opens in the US on April 1.
Here’s the beginning of an interview with Bier, from Sundance.
If she were American rather than Danish, Susanne Bier would likely be one of the more recognizable filmmakers in the world. She specializes in emotionally gripping, character-based dramas that manage to be both accessible and aesthetically accomplished. Pigeonholed in the American arthouse, she’s really making stories for the masses. After edging toward stateside recognition with a 2007 Oscar nomination for After the Wedding, and after last year’s American remake of her wartime love triangle Brothers, the lid might have finally come off when her latest film, In a Better World, took home the award for Best Foreign Film at this year’s Golden Globes.
A contemporary allegory about cycles of aggression and revenge, the film alternates between middle class families in small-town Denmark and a medical outpost outside a war-ravaged African village. It’s a film very much of its moment, but it also addresses perennial questions about how men can coexist without constantly punching one another’s lights out — or destroying civilization in the process. In advance of the film’s U.S. premiere at the Festival (and her position as a member of the World Dramatic Jury this year), Ms. Bier talked about the art of storytelling, and why she remains an optimist despite the fragile state of the world.
