Kristian Levring (; born 9 May 1957) is a Danish film director. He was the fourth signatory of the
Dogme95 movement. His feature films as director include ''Et skud fra hjertet'', ''The King is Alive'', ''The Intended'', ''Fear Me Not'', and ''The Salvation''.
Early life
Kristian Levring was born in 1957 in
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
. He later became a graduate of the National Film School of Denmark.
Career
Kristian Levring began his career as a documentarian, editing a number of feature-length documentaries and Danish-language feature films during the first two decades of his time as a filmmaker. He also worked as a director for television commercials. His first feature film he directed was ''Et skud fra hjertet'' (''Shot from the Heart''), released in 1986. Kristian Levring was the fourth signatory of the
Dogme95 movement, however moved away from this style towards the end of the aughts.
He co-signed the original manifesto in 1995 alongside
Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier (''né'' Trier; 30 April 1956) is a Danish filmmaker, actor, and lyricist. Having garnered a reputation as a highly ambitious, polarizing filmmaker, he has been the subject of several controversies: Cannes, in addition to nominat ...
,
Thomas Vinterberg
Thomas Vinterberg (; born 19 May 1969) is a Danish film director who, along with Lars von Trier, co-founded the Dogme 95 movement in filmmaking, which established rules for simplifying movie production. He is best known for the films ''The Celeb ...
, and
Søren Kragh-Jacobsen
Søren Kragh-Jacobsen (; born 2 March 1947, in Copenhagen) is a Danish film director, musician, and songwriter. He was one of the founders and practitioners of the Dogme95 project, for creating films without artificial technology or techniques. ...
. In 2008, Levring and the other Dogme 95 founders were honoured with the Achievement in World Cinema award at the European Film Awards.
''The King is Alive''
Levring released the film ''The King is Alive'' in 2000. ''The Guardian'' describes the film as following, "bus passengers stranded in the Namibian desert, who decide to stage their own private performance of ''
King Lear
''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare.
It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane an ...
'' to pass the time until help arrives."
The passengers are stranded in an abandoned mining town in the middle of the Sahara. The film utilized ''Lear'' as a foil for European society reaching a terminal crisis. The words of ''Lear'' are used to further show the disintegration of the group into chaos under the pressure of their stranding. While one of the members is sent on a five-day journey to get help, the social relationships that Levring explores among those that stay behind include gender, marital, and the racial elements of the relationship between the passengers and the bus driver. The film was named an Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival upon its premiere.
The film has many elements in line with the Dogme95 cinematic beliefs, including placing film as a post-apocalyptic art form. Jan Simons wrote that, "''The King is Alive'' allows us to see Dogma 95 ''in actu'', as it were. With no decor and no costumes, in the natural light of the sun's glare, and with no recourse to the technical resources of theatre, the amateur actors study their roles; Henry writes everybody's lines out by hand, from memory." Referencing to the rules of Dogma 95 are also found throughout the film. ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' wrote of Levring's work on the film that,
"Mr. Levring's vision of hell is vivid and stark but -- thanks to that empty, endless desert -- touched with a pictorial sublimity rarely attempted within the constraints of the Dogma aesthetic. The unsparing, invasive naturalism of digital video, which seems specially calibrated to register the play of anxiety and distress on human faces, also records an inhuman landscape of undulating dunes and blinding sky. The juxtaposition creates a sense of loneliness and panic, a stomach-turning dread that makes the survival instinct look almost comically weak."
''The Intended''
In 2002, Levring co-wrote and directed ''
The Intended''. The film follows two British expatriates and their lives in a remote Asian ivory trading station during the early 1900s, where the small community falls apart under the pressures of the foreign lands and daily struggles to survive. The film has been described as, "an expressionistic and densely textured revisitation of ''The Heart of Darkness'' in the jungles of Malaysia." The film opened at the
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...
.
''Fear Me Not''
In 2008 Levring directed ''
Fear Me Not
''Fear Me Not'' ( da, Den du frygter) is a Danish psychological thriller film released in 2008, directed by Kristian Levring.O'Hehir, Andrew (April 24, 2009)Handicapping Manhattan’s spring movie fling. Salon.com The film premiered at the Toront ...
''. The film explores the issues of prescription medication on the psychology of families, following the protagonist as they try the use of antidepressants to cure his malaise stemming from workaholism. The protagonist soon becomes paranoid and starts to fear his spouse. The plot is reminiscent of the narrative of ''Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'', and debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the rights were sold to IFC. The film also opened at the Toronto International Film Festival.
''The Salvation''
Levring's western film titled ''
The Salvation'', starred
Mads Mikkelsen and was screened at the
2014 Cannes Film Festival
The 67th Cannes Film Festival was held from 14 to 25 May 2014. New Zealand film director Jane Campion was the head of the jury for the main competition section. The Palme d'Or was awarded to the Turkish film '' Winter Sleep'' directed by Nuri Bi ...
, where it became an Official Selection.
Levring filmed the movie in South Africa, setting it in the American frontier. The story follows the character Jon, a Danish "ex-soldier who moved to the States after losing to the Germans on the battlefield in 1864," according to ''Variety''. Levring has stated that during this era, about half of all people on the American frontier did not speak English, which was the entry-point for him to produce a film about the American west.
In developing the film, Levring used both Western films and Nordic mythology as inspiration. In an interview with ''
Reader's Digest
''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wi ...
'', Levring stated of the film's subject matter that, "You could see the Western frontier as the beginning of civilization, and I’m very interested in the nature of civilization. Often these places are a microscope: you can look at these characters and see how they behave in quite extreme situations. Civilization is quite a thin varnish, and when you take that away it’s interesting to see what happens." Levring both cowrote and directed the film.
Filmography
Films
*''Shot from the Heart'' (1986)
*''
The King Is Alive
''The King Is Alive'' is a 2000 drama film directed by Kristian Levring. The fourth film to be done according to the Dogme 95 rules, it was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.
Plot
A group of tourists a ...
'' (2000)
*''
The Intended'' (2002)
*''
Fear Me Not
''Fear Me Not'' ( da, Den du frygter) is a Danish psychological thriller film released in 2008, directed by Kristian Levring.O'Hehir, Andrew (April 24, 2009)Handicapping Manhattan’s spring movie fling. Salon.com The film premiered at the Toront ...
'' (2008)
*''
The Salvation'' (2014)
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Levring, Kristian
1957 births
Living people
European Film Awards winners (people)
Danish film directors
Danish male screenwriters
Danish film editors
People from Copenhagen