AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street
[with video]
TIM KROENERT MAY 01, 2013
The Hunt (MA). Director: Thomas Vinterberg. Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Annika Wedderkopp, Lasse Fogelstrøm, Susse Wold. 116 minutes
This excellent Danish film is difficult to write about in the context of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. One of the most unpalatable aspects of such abuse cases, notably within the Catholic Church, is the way in which the word and wellbeing of perpetrators has seemed at times to be given precedence over those of their young victims. No one would doubt that the reverse should be true.
Yet on the surface The Hunt appears to be a cautionary tale about the consequences of vigilance succumbing to paranoia. It centres on small-town kindergarten teacher, Lucas (Mikkelsen), whose life falls apart after he is wrongfully accused of abusing a young female student. To the viewer he is clearly a victim of persecution, and yet his persecutors’ actions are based simply on the fact that they have taken an alleged victim at her word.
Well, in a way. His ‘accuser’, Klara (Wedderkopp), is a sensitive and imaginative child, confused by the emotions of a pre-adolescent crush on her kind and handsome teacher. Her comments are first misconstrued and then blown out of proportion by genuinely concerned and well-meaning adults. She is the daughter of Lucas’ best friend Theo (Larsen) and so gets a front seat view of the subsequent fallout in Lucas’ life.
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