Since the 1970s, the travelling and extremely productive film poet Jon Bang Carlsen has created an extensive body of work with a creative and personal look at the world, with the staged documentary as his preferred form. When his beloved wife passes away, he reaches for filmmaking as a way to give his grief a form. ‘The Banality of Grief’ is a cinematic love letter to a loved one and to the places where they shared their lives for 35 years. South Africa, the USA, their shared home by the water. The boundaries between past and present end in an impressionistic and deeply personal film, where existential and artistic thoughts are countered by new impressions, which testify that life is the greatest of them all. Jon Bang Carlsen is a rare and precious figure in Danish cinema. An adventurer with an ever-recording camera, who directs his gaze outwards even when his thoughts are turned inwards.
Reviews
Absolutely Fantastic
This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.
While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
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