In this ambitious debut feature from Danish director Anders Morgenthaler, clergyman August returns home from missionary work abroad to take guardianship of Mia, the sexually abused daughter of his sister Christina, a famous porn star who has died of a drugs overdose. Grief-stricken and guilt-ridden, he seeks violent vengeance on the porn industry he blames for his sister’s destruction. As the body count mounts, the gulf yawns between his idealisation of his moral crusade and the extreme horror of his actions. And was Christina simply his enemy’s victim, or was August himself, self-righteous and bullying, complicit in her death – indeed, did he set her on the path to porndom through his earlier incessant, voyeuristic filming of her? This is a smart, brutal film, probing moral ambiguities. It is also stylistically bold, filmed mostly as Japanese-like anime (appropriate given the vengeance and violence themes) – allowing Morgenthaler to address subjects, like the damage caused by sexually abusing a child, in a way that wouldn’t be possible in a live action movie – but with some Eighties-styled live action for the flashbacks to Christina. Again, we are forced to ask whose perception of events is more ‘real’, August’s or those he fights.
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