In October 2021, I watched Another Round for the first time at Kinema Junpo Theater. The Danish film was released in September 2021 starring Mads Mikkelsen who is called a Scandinavian treasure in Japan.
Although I had thought that it tells a story about a
man who becomes the subject of a full-scale experiment done by a university or
a laboratory in order to prove that persons can have fulfilling private life
and work with moderate alcohol, yet it just depicts four close high school teachers
who try to kind of seriously test a scholar's theory about moderate alcohol's
effect on their lives and fall into a situation that drinking persons can imagine.
Friendship among the four men were heartwarming. So
were how Martin, a history teacher looking dumb, played by Mikkelsen gradually gives intriguing lessons with the help of alcohol and how his
students' expression become lively. Then I was drawn by the drama of Martin
facing a midlife crisis and his wife. Mikkelsen also shows a brilliant dance as
if he is taking out pent-up frustration caused by playing a lame ordinary man
at the last scene. The ending was really refreshing.