User reviews

I was kind of let down by this short, since it won the Oscars and all. I xpected more. But it's actually an okay short, technically well done and sometimes rather amusing. But the story is too slight, and the humour, while being nicely subdued and gentle throughout, is not consistently funny enough throughout. But it's biggest problem is it's subject matter (which ironically is the REASON it won the Oscar) Film is PC moralizing in a manner that has been done to death here in Denmark. "respect your fellow man, even though he is an immigrant", "don't be a racist pig" etc., etc. This is all very fine, but I and pretty much anyone I know, don't need to be taught that. And I doubt a single racist bigot would change his mind after seeing this movie. It doesn't exactly give any real new insight into anything really.

But all in all, it is a well-crafted, rather amusing short, but don't expect Oscar material. But then again, "A Beautiful Mind" won the gong even though it was the least deserving in the pack.

The Oscar win by Martin Strange-Hansen's "Der er en yndig mand" ("This Charming Man" in English) went over my head at the time; after all, how many of the nominated short films are readily available to see? I finally found a copy of it in a local video store. To me, the short poses the question of immigrants' status in a country. The protagonist has had trouble finding a job, despite being a native-born person in an egalitarian society, so he poses as an immigrant in the hope of starting up a relationship with a woman whom he's fond of. I'm left wondering how successful he would've been had he gone the other way around.

Either way, it's an enjoyable short.

This is movie gives a very precise picture of the danish culture. The main character is El Hassan/ Lars Hansen. There is a mixup on the jobagency so they mistaken him for a foreigner. Then he meets a girls who he falls in love in and she teach danish to foreigners. It is then he takes his new character of El Hassan. All these comes out to an outstanding and funny movie.

I was glad to have a chance to see what turned out to be the Oscar-winner for short subject. Here in the U.S. we may forget that other countries also experience immigration in ways unique to each receiving country. The confusion over the names was funny and believable, and the bureaucratic maze in which the protagonist found himself is apparently universal! The teacher's empathy for her language students was explained, in a non-dogmatic way, by her own background as a "peasant" and the discrimination she suffered. I cheered when it won the Oscar--unfortunately, none of my friends had seen it and probably never will, because of the limited availability of these short films!

It's a little difficult to say exactly what This Charming Man is about, if only because there is so clearly so much going on beneath the surface. On the surface it is a charming romantic comedy, but there are times where the very serious issue of racism is brought up in a very serious way, but the movie has a remarkable ability to switch back and forth between comedy and drama that allows it to utilize each genre to its maximum potential each time it is brought up.

Lars is trying to find a job, just about any job. He's desperate. One day he meets a girl that he used to know in school who was sort of the girl that everyone picked on because of her weight, and he was certainly no exception. He is shocked at her appearance, she has lost a lot of weight and, simply put, is beautiful. He soon realizes that she is also very successful and not desperate for any job she can possibly find, like he is, and he quickly falls in love with her.

Evidently racism is quite rampant in Denmark, or at least that is how it is portrayed in this film. The guys go out to the bars and tell jokes like an atomic bomb exploded in Pakistan and guess how many people died, none because they are all here on the dole! Very clever. Since I grew up mostly in California, I have heard plenty of similar jokes about Mexicans, but this movie takes a very real approach at the prejudice that immigrants suffer in Denmark, because employers are quite open about the fact that they don't want to hire someone who is an immigrant. There is something of an open dislike or distrust of them that makes their lives extremely difficult.

Having come from a family of Colombian immigrants, I know almost first-hand what it is like for those people. I have never experienced racial prejudice myself, since my mother in white (Danish, actually, as it were) and my father Colombian and I got my light brown hair and blue eyes from my mother's side, but while I was growing up I saw my father struggling from one menial job to the next, trying to learn to speak English at the same time as he is trying to help support his sizable, unskilled and uneducated family in a new country. It's rough, you really have to appreciate what these people go through, and while this movie spends a significant amount of time making you laugh, I think it does give you a clear picture of the plight of the immigrant, which is obviously not limited to Denmark or America.

Interestingly, there is a point where Lars, the main character (under cover as El Hassan) does not get a job, and Ida, the woman Lars has fallen in love with, jokes that he can't find a job "Just because you're not blonde and you're name's not Hansen!" I just found that to be pretty funny, because my mother's maiden name is Hansen.

At any rate, the movie works very well as a romantic comedy. The love-struck Lars reminds me of the hopeless romantic Shaun in Shaun of the Dead, another outstanding, if a bit unorthodox, romantic comedy. This one takes on some pretty serious issues, but it does so with a clear understanding of the gravity of the subject matter that it was dealing with, and with wonderful success in the final film. Seek this one out.

Hey, this was not a bad movie. I just don't think it deserved an Oscar... I have seen many Danish shorts that were better than this one. It is a feel-good film, but it just isn't very deep, it's actually boring at places, and the whole idea is a little silly...

It's not a complete waste of time, but I've definately seen better!

This film is about a case of mistaken identity as a man in Denmark pretends to be a muslim in order to be close to a girl he likes. While having some interesting things to say about prejudice and the state of life in denmark, the film is a tad longish and the lead actor lacks charisma. GRADE: C+

Well, I thought the lead actor was just fine. He was supposed to be slightly nebbishy anyway. The movie I thought was a little corny, but the message was very sweet. I'm surprised it got the Oscar--it wasn't exactly deep. But it was feel-goody, so okay. I especially liked the part where the 2 guys get their beers and make a little happy sound. I guess that's universal.