The Gentle Pain
Synopsis
One can't help wondering whether, some quarter-century ago, Carsten Brandt had the slightest inkling of the epic dimension the project he was then starting to conceive â The Gentle Pain â would take on in the subsequent decades. For it became epic in just about every sense of the word: the film is very long; it tells a multi-layered story characterised as much by its digressions as by its main narrative thread, which concerns a filmmakerâs attempts to make sense of the life of Thorkild Hansen, a Danish traveller/historian/writer internationally probably best known for his non-fiction novel Processen mod Hamsun (1978); and it took a long time to finish â and then sat on a shelf due to legal battles galore. What is now finally revealed is a monument of modern(ist) cinema: a work that as much charts one manâs journey into his soul as a voyage of discovery into another artistâs mind.
Where to watch
Not currently available to stream in United States.
