De grønne slagtere (2003)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Anders Thomas Jensen

Writer:

Anders Thomas Jensen (writer)

Release Date:

21 March 2003 (Denmark)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

You never forget the taste of human flesh

Plot:

Svend and Bjarne work for a butcher in a small Danish town. Fed up with their boss' arrogance, they decide to start their own butcher shop...

Plot Keywords:

Butcher | Marijuana | Brother Brother Relationship | Stock Broker | Color In Title

Awards:

7 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Line Kruse	...	Astrid
Nikolaj Lie Kaas	...	Bjarne / Eigil
Mads Mikkelsen	...	Svend
Nicolas Bro	...	Hus Hans
Aksel Erhardtsen	...	Reverend Villumsen
Bodil Jørgensen	...	Tina
Ole Thestrup	...	Holger
Lily Weiding	...	Ms Juhl
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Camilla Bendix	...	Beate, Tina's friend
Jakob Cedergren
Kristian Halken
Per Holm Henriksen	...	Patient
Tomas Villum Jensen	...	Håndværker
Jeppe Kaas	...	Musiker
Henning Lajer
Peter Lambert
Hanne Løvendahl	...	Kunde i kø
André Lundemann
Mia Lyhne
Christina Meyer
Laura Meyer
Sofia Meyer
Kjeld Nørgaard	...	Sundhedskontrollant #1
Lars Ranthe
Peter Reichhardt	...	Sundhedskontrollant #2
Frans Rubæk
Elsebeth Steentoft
Søren Thomsen
Mikkel Vadsholt
Dany Verissimo	...	Girl (voice)

Also Known As:

The Green Butchers (International: English title)

MPAA:

Rated R for language, disturbing images and drug use.

Runtime:

100 min | Denmark:95 min | Canada:95 min (Ontario)

Country:

Denmark

Language:

Danish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Certification:

Canada:14A (Ontario) | UK:15 | Iceland:16 | Malaysia:(Banned) | Portugal:M/16 | Denmark:11 | Sweden:15 | Germany:16 | USA:R | Australia:MA

Filming Locations:

Det Danske Filmstudie, Lyngby, Sjælland, Denmark

Company:

M&M Productions

Quotes:

Svend: Tina dammit... My parents died when I was a baby.
Tina: Stop with the parents already!

Movie Connections:

Featured in De grønne slagtere - en virkelig god marinade (2003) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Ewig war ich

A very dark, sober and realistic comedy

De Grønne slagtere or The Green Butchers as it is called in English is a very dark comedy about two losers who work for a popular butcher. They are fed up with their bosses criticism and decide to start a business on their own. Their shop is expensive and it doesn't even have electricity all over the place. And to make things worse, they haven't got any customers (as their former boss predicted). When the man pays them a visit in their shop, he challenges them to provide the meat for a dinner party he organizes.

Than a tragic accident happens. One of the butchers locks the electrician into the freezing chamber when he closes the shop. The man dies and the neurotic one of the two butchers decides to cut fillets out of the electrician's thigh and serves it to the dinner party instead of calling the police. It's an incredible success. All at once every person in the village wants to taste that incredible "chicken". Overwhelmed by his sudden success the butcher sees no other option but to kill more people, who he can sell as chicken.

I guess that the subject cannibalism may not be enjoyed by everyone, especially not because it is shown with a lot of humor. Personally I liked it a lot. It shows perfectly how far some people would go for some social acceptance and to get out of their isolation. It may sound a bit far-fetched, but I'm sure you would be surprised to see how people in real life sometimes act.

Next to the original subject, I was also pleased by the actors' performances and the humor. There is no overacting, as you might expect in this kind of movies, it's all very sober and realistic (I guess that's typical for the Scandinavians and Scandinavian movies). The same for the humor. I'm sure I wouldn't have liked it as much as I did now if the humor had been over the top, or with a lot of farting, vomiting,... like you see so often in American movies. I loved this movie and I give it an 8/10.