Adam's apples

Un film insolite regorgeant de situations absurdes et dont les personnages sont bien conçus. (06/02/2012)

You got to hand it to the Danes. Political correctness is a fairly unknown concept to them. Tasteful black humor with wider significance. At first glance perhaps a bizarre combination, but incredibly funny and, most importantly, good. After Flickering Lights, Anders Thomas Jensen again confirms his talent for “good little" movies. And from now on I am going to give apple pies a very wide berth. You never know what Nazi has been rummaging about in them. (05/04/2008)

On an Old Testament basis, Jensen created a layered story in which visually uncharacteristically exacerbated motifs play the main role in Nordic cinema of the "great other" (God/ reality / symbolic order... whatever...), but hand in hand with them go the very typical "indirect dialogues". The characters talk, but the meaning of their speech depends on a symbolic plane - not in what is said, but in the subtle interaction of hints, silences and hidden meanings. Mads Mikkelsen's character, however shrouded in biblical stigmas, is purely human at his core, and his message that it is necessary to escape from reality at the cost of merciful deceptions softens even the sometimes "overly" monumental symbols. It's not about them, about some elusive entities and big ideas, but rather about that warm-frosty secondary life in which all the characters experience firsthand that each of us needs apple pie and closed eyes to turn the seemingly cruel absurdity of existence into a bearable game. Whether Ivan is Job (or just a blind man) and Adam enticed by Satan (or just a fool living a delusion), Adam's Apples tastes sour and you can't tear yourself away from it. There's a taste of hope, escape and sweet returns in the film. Not a dizzyingly deep, yet wonderfully "true" film about having no lasting truths and unshakable certainty. A black biblical tragicomedy. (19/12/2010)

Proper insanity. Such an utterly unpredictable and absurd script is not something you see very often. Adam’s Apples can’t be classified into any genre, there are moments that are easygoing and funny, followed by sadness and rage. Regardless, it’s a brilliant film in every aspect. PS: It’s impossible not to be reminded of Trier’s The Kingdom. (24/01/2010)

It stars Mads Mikkelsen, but the film was weird for my taste. I wasn't extremely interested in anything, it's not funny or entertaining, I didn't really like the characters, and a few minutes after it was over I had trouble telling in two sentences what it was about. Not much 50% (26/11/2017)