An encounter with Thomas Vinterberg and his tragic comedy, “Der Rausch”, the portrait of an alcoholized society.
In a just world, Thomas Vinterberg’s tragic comedy “Der Rausch” would have started its triumphal march in spring 2020. She was part of the Cannes Film Festival, which was finally canceled due to Corona. But even closed cinemas only delayed the success, which was crowned with an Oscar abroad last April.
This film, which can still be discovered in Germany, is anything but an unknown masterpiece. However, he hasn’t aged a day; even if you’ve read a lot about the astonishing plot idea – the project of four teachers who decide not to spend their days sober anymore. In fact, as in any great film, it’s about a lot more than just a plot, but, one has to say it dogmatically, about life itself.
A word has already slipped out to which the Dane Thomas Vinterberg has a special relationship. He was only 26 when he and Lars von Trier invented “Dogma 95”, the last cinematic trend of the 20th century. With the rejection of elaborate film techniques and clichés such as “murder and manslaughter” and a restriction to hand-held cameras, direct sound and natural light, a group of young Danish filmmakers hoped to get a little closer to the truth of life.
The four teachers also invent such a dogma, a rule of the game. They name the Norwegian psychiatrist Finn Skårderud as their key witness: the researcher of human unrest once explained that every person was born with half a per mille of alcohol too little. Ernest Hemingway is also quickly there, who wrote magnificent texts while drinking. On the spur of the moment, the four ennobled as a self-experiment, which initially frees them from some obvious inhibitions.
If the four timpanists had been experienced in rather miserable situations up to then, the constant swiping made them suddenly popular with the students. Mads Mikkelsen, the central figure as a history teacher, had previously struggled with parents’ protests because hardly anyone could follow his hungover murmur. What he just missed was someone in the crown: The class is now enthusiastically following his excursion about Churchill, spiced up with his bon mot that he never drank before breakfast. But won a war!
Alcohol is not only a means of carefree teaching, it is also increasingly an issue, and the students already have plenty of experience to offer. Colleague Peter (Lars Ranthe) even gives an anxious student the tip to take a few strong sips before an exam.
Even in the lessons of the psychology teacher Nikolay (Magnus Millang) and the sports teacher Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen) taboos are quietly removed from what society is only barely hiding anyway. The amazing thing about this comedy, which works its way into the tragicomic, is less the derailments of the teachers than the little excitement they encounter. Vinterberg subtly portrays an alcoholized society without any moralism. In a remarkable scene, Mikkelsen’s film character is found in front of the house one morning, full of stars and with a bloody forehead. As a matter of course, the son drags him in. Without having to say a word about it, one suspects that this should not have happened for the first time.
In view of these revealing nuances about the trivialization of alcoholism in society, one cannot fully trust Vinterberg’s supposed impartiality.
“I wanted to have a celebration of alcohol and have been looking for an idea for a long time,” he explains in an interview, sounding almost as provocative for a moment as his former dogma colleague Lars von Trier. “I’ve explored everything, including the downsides. But it turned out to be a lot more. Because spirits are much more than alcohol. The word “spirit” is also found in “inspiration”. In the end it may be less a film about alcohol than about Denmark. “
The longer the film, the more one recognizes the portrait of a western society in which hardly an event is conceivable without alcohol. And finally you can see behind the weakness of the protagonists that they can only experience their happiness when they are drunk, it is precisely this happiness. And that in turn, the joy of community and ecstasy, can seem particularly precious to us today, with the lockdown behind us.
Vinterberg is surprised that I cannot share his fear that his film can be read as a guide to alcohol consumption. Isn’t it more of an addendum to an illustrious film story about the dangers of alcoholism, in a series with Billy Wilder’s “The Lost Weekend” and “The Days of Wine and Roses” by Blake Edwards?
“I would find that very flattering,” says Vinterberg, whose film admittedly does not use the subject of alcoholism as a straightforward path into melodrama. “I live a very controlled life as a family man and filmmaker, so I don’t have that much time to drink. But what I found out: Alcohol comes in three phases. First you become an idealized version of yourself. In phase two you have to drink to become yourself. Otherwise you are a grumpy figure. Finally, in phase three, you have to drink to combat the withdrawal symptoms. I recommend phase one and stop before phase two comes. “
As if the slide into alcoholism could be controlled so easily. Doesn’t he have any addiction? He thinks for a moment: “I would say coffee and sex”.
The intoxication. Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands 2020. Director: Thomas Vinterberg. 116 min.
