Families like Ours: the exciting dystopia from the director of Drunk [critique]

The climate crisis and the migrations it will inevitably generate, told from Denmark in a human, intelligent and moving dystopia, by Thomas Vinterberg.

Four years after the phenomenon Drunk (Oscar and César for Best Foreign Film), Thomas Vinterberg is back. But not at the cinema. Following in the footsteps of his compatriots Lars von Trier and Nicolas Winding Refn, the Danish director is trying the small screen experience for the first time with Families like Oursa mini-series broadcast in France on Canal+ which is overflowing with ambition. It took 6 hours (7 episodes of 50 minutes) to present this chilling and edifying dystopia, which possibly says a lot (let's hope not…) about the tragedies that await the old continent…

In the very near future, rising water levels will become unmanageable for countries facing an unprecedented rise in ocean levels. The Dutch had to flee the Netherlands and at the start of summer, it was the Danish government which made a drastic decision: financing dikes and dams became absurd and futile. Denmark is also doomed in the short term. So we have to leave. And organize the evacuation of the 6 million inhabitants, who will have to take refuge with their European neighbors. Some are sent to Finland, others to Poland, Germany… Laura's reconstituted family must settle in France. But his mother, who lives alone, is sent to Romania…

A FAMILY DRAMA, NOT POLITICAL

Thomas Vinterberg changes the scope of his cinema. The director of Festen looks at the destiny of the world, but does so with its own touch: by examining the family, in all its forms, and this time throwing it into the total unknown. On the edge of the void. Nothingness. How can we overcome the very absence of a future? A dizzying consideration, which recalls the cold sweats we spun Years and Years in 2019. Families like Ours also brutally slaps us in the face with this horribly prophetic little thing. But Vinterberg prefers to neglect the political side of things. The Dane has less ambition to sound the climate alarm than to show human resilience in the face of an unprecedented crisis situation. Turning away from the geopolitical ramifications that such a questioning of the world would entail, he focuses on the people caught in the storm. Here, the cataclysm is not visual, it is emotional. His story turns its back on the spectacular, to always remain in the intimate, the human.

THE AMARYLLIS AUGUST REVELATION

Families like Ours thus starts from climate change to depict the migration crisis that is hanging over us and questions in passing: Will we be able to welcome these refugees? Will we be able to rise to the test of solidarity? Thomas Vinterberg speaks brilliantly about immigration, reversing the roles. Inspired by the movie Brooklyn (2015) – which recounted the settling of an Irish woman in New York in the 1950s – it tells with passion the heartbreak of separation, the fragmentation of a people, of a culture. He does it without hype, but with a significant humanity, which always serves his narrative entirely centered on the characters.

As the leader of the casting, we discover a revelation named Amaryllis August – daughter of the director Bill Augustdouble Palme d’Or at Cannes for Pelle the Conqueror And The Best Intentions – moving teenager carried away by the drama, torn by life and her choices. Throughout his captivating family saga, the destinies of his family intersect from Copenhagen to Bucharest via Paris. The emotion grabs us by the throat. Angst in my guts. Hoping that Thomas Vinterberg has not guessed the Europe of tomorrow.

Families like Ours, to be seen every Monday on Canal + from January 6.