Another Round? Yes Please!

 “But it makes me terrified, to be on the other side, how long before I go insane?”

What was your first experience with alcohol like? Did you puke? Did you dance it off? Did you end up thinking about that asshole who broke your heart? What was it like, getting intoxicated for the first time? Letting loose voluntarily and then realising that it wasn’t half as bad, compared to the things you had heard about alcohol?

Drunk or not, I believe that one should always live their life thinking there are no tomorrows. It definitely is a better option than dying with regrets. And I know it’s easier said than done, but as the characters in this movie will show you - sometimes you gotta let Jesus take the wheel and let loose a bit to understand what a wonder, a truly unique miracle the gift of life is. 

Another Round [Danish: “Druk” meaning binge drinking] is about letting go of control; seeing how losing control feels like in your personal as well as professional life. Set in the sublime surroundings of Copenhagen, Denmark, is the story of four childhood friends - Martin, Peter, Nikolaj & Tommy,  all teachers, who, while getting together for Niko’s 40th birthday, discuss an interesting theory by Norwegian psychiatrist Finn Skårderud which states that human beings are born with 0.05% less BAC (Blood Alcohol Content) and the refurbishment thereof can lead to significant improvements in one’s psychological and social life. 

Martin, who has been avoiding getting drunk all this while, breaks down and tells that things haven’t been super for him for a while now. His wife Anika takes extra shifts at work and his students have already revolted against his apathetic teaching. The four end up getting shit drunk, making fun of Martin’s past life as a jazz ballet dancer.

Fact: Martin, played by Mads Mikkelsen, used to be a professional ballet dancer and gymnast in his early career. And without disappointing the viewers, Director Vinterberg puts his dancing skills to good use - not that I wasn’t already obsessed with Mads’ Hannibal slicing up human livers and crucifying innocents on deer antlers. 

A young Mads performing ballet

Emboldened by their discussion the previous day, Martin decides to try it out for real, glucking some Smirnoff right before class, and shares his experience of the same later with the rest of the group. 

Taking the whole event in a scientific spirit, the four decide to record their experiences in stages of alcohol consumption and log their experiences as experiments. 

Days before the shooting of the movie began, director Thomas Vinterberg lost his daughter Ida in a car accident, who eventually filmed the entire movie in her school, with her classmates. And it kinda makes me wonder how Mr Vinterberg ended up making a movie whose principal theme pushes viewers to be full of life, only days after losing a loved one. And once again, it puts me in awe of the way human beings create the extraordinary out of absolutely nothing. 

Yeah, here’s another lame review for another beautiful movie I just watched. So what? You’re probably pretty lame too. Shut the fuck up. Sorry, I was talking to myself. No, I wasn’t. Who cares. 

But seriously, if my lame review did not convince you enough to watch the movie, here’s a snippet of Hannibal Lecter, the famous fictional cannibal in another life, doing jazz ballet celebrating the graduation of the class he taught while pretending to be drunk. [Yes, the actors were sober during the entirety of the movie]

Another Round won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film and the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language and European Film Award for Best Film and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

If like me, you're surrounded by too many assholes who are making it hard to appreciate the good things in your life, I would recommend you to watch this beautiful piece. Life is hard and most of the times, is "more fucked than a pornstar's asshole" to quote a friend, but we could all do with little reminders - that it can be a magnificently miraculous motherfucker.

Another Round is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video.