‘Adam’s Apples‘, a 2005 film by Danish director Anders Thomas Jensen, abounds in religious symbols. The main characters are named Adam and Ivan (resonating close to Eve), the story takes place in and around a church, Ivan is a priest, (numerous) Bibles fall down and always open to the Book of Job, and an apple tree loaded with fruit will play an important role in the story. But this is not about Paradise, the characters are rather confronted with the Devil and their own demons. It is an original and interesting film, which highlights the conflicts between faith and non-believers, between reality and imagination as a mechanism of self-defense against the hardships of life. It is a film with strange and unfortunate characters, and it is one of those Danish comedies in which the absurd, the grotesque and the sublime coexist well together.
Adam in this movie (Ulrich Thomsen) is a neo-Nazi, a violent and rude man, who does not hide his opinions and brutally cuts through any situation. Fresh out of prison, he must serve a probationary period of public service in the parish of the priest Ivan (Mads Mikkelsen). Gunnar (Nicolas Bro), a former tennis champion who fell into alcoholism, and Khalid (Ali Kazim), a refugee from a Muslim country and a gas station robber, are also here. Ivan seems at first to be a model preacher who strives to bring sinners on the right path through sermons and socially useful activities, but we soon begin to understand that his reality is not the same as the one seen by those around him and especially by Adam, and that the struggle with Satan preached in sermons has a much more concrete embodiment in his person.
‘Adam’s Apples‘ is one of those films in which the story is more of an allegory and less a faithful and immediate reflection of reality, but that does not mean that the characters are abstract or belong to the realm of fantasy. On the contrary, each of them is far from stereotypes, has a life and a complexity that avoids patterns. Ivan, Adam, Gunnar, Khalid, Sarah – the woman asking for the priest’s advice about an abortion – and the old former guard in a concentration camp gradually reveal themselves to the spectators and each becomes something else than what they seem at first sight. Acting is exceptional, Mads Mikkelsen formidable as always being matched with the right partners in this film. The cinematography signed by Sebastian Blenkov creates a seemingly idyllic setting of a Danish rural area which at key moments turns into threatening. Of the Anders Thomas Jensen films I’ve seen so far, ‘Adam’s Apples‘ seems to me the most impressive.