Story of movie The Hunt 2012 Film :
The Hunt (Danish: Jagten) is a 2012 Danish mystery drama film directed by Thomas Vinterberg and starring Mads Mikkelsen. The story is set in a small Danish village around Christmas, and follows a man who becomes the target of mass hysteria after being wrongly accused of sexually abusing a child in his kindergarten class.
| The Hunt | |
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Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Thomas Vinterberg |
| Produced by |
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| Written by |
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| Starring | Mads Mikkelsen |
| Music by | Nikolaj Egelund |
| Cinematography | Charlotte Bruus Christensen |
| Edited by |
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Production company | Zentropa |
| Distributed by | Nordisk Film |
Release date |
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Running time | 115 minutes |
| Country | Denmark |
| Language | Danish English |
| Budget | $3.45 million |
| Box office | $18.3 million |
The film was screened at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and competed at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival where Mikkelsen won the Best Actor Award for his role. It also won the 2013 Nordic Council Film Prize. The film was selected as the Danish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards, making the final nomination. It was nominated in the same category at the 2013 Golden Globe Awards.
Screenplay
After budget cuts cost him his job as a high school teacher, Lucas takes a job as a preschool teacher in a close-knit Danish community, where he is well-liked. Divorced, he struggles to maintain a relationship with his teenage son, Marcus, who lives with his ex-wife, but the boy eventually decides to live with him. Lucas' coworker Nadja, an emigrant from Russia, makes advances towards him and eventually becomes his girlfriend.
One of Lucas' students is a 5-year-old girl named Klara, the daughter of his best friend, Theo. She has a crush on Lucas, who is kind to her while her parents argue and lets her walk his Spaniel dog, Fanny. One day Klara puts a heart-shaped ornament into his coat pocket, then gives him a kiss on the lips. After Lucas comes to regret the kiss, Klara's feelings are hurt. Drawing on a memory of a pornographic photo her older teenage brother and his friend showed her, she makes comments describing an erect penis that lead the preschool director to believe Lucas indecently exposed himself to her. Klara is asked leading questions about what occurred and gives unclear responses about Lucas, alternately denying and confirming the abuse. Klara's later contradictions to her mother, Agnes, that nothing happened are dismissed by Agnes as Klara repressing painful memories of the abuse.
The preschool's director, who believes children would not lie about such a thing, informs the other parents that abuse likely occurred and asks them to look for signs of sexual abuse in their own children. The parents ask leading questions of their children, who also say they were abused, destroying any public doubt about Klara's story, and Lucas is fired and shunned by the community as a paedophile and sexual predator. His friendship with Theo, who insists his daughter never lies, is destroyed. His relationship with Nadja is likewise ruined when she asks if the accusations are true, causing him to angrily throw her out of the house. Marcus is forbidden from moving in with him and is publicly ostracised. Lucas survives only with the financial support of his close friend Bruun, whose father is extremely wealthy.
At Christmastime, Lucas is arrested on suspicion of sexual assault. However, the children's accounts all involve Lucas abusing them in his basement, which supports Lucas' innocence as his house has no basement. After a hearing, Lucas is released without charge, and he celebrates with Marcus and Bruun.
However, the community is still suspicious, and the ostracism turns to violence. Fanny is killed, and a large stone is thrown through his kitchen window. When he goes grocery shopping, the store employees attack him. On Christmas Eve, Lucas confronts Theo during a public church service. Later, Theo overhears Klara apologizing to Lucas as she drifts off to sleep, then she once again insists nothing happened. Theo believes her and realizes that Lucas is innocent after all, and he visits him with food and alcohol as a peace offering.
A year later, tensions in the community have lessened. Lucas and Nadja are in their relationship again, and Marcus is accepted into the local hunting society as an adult. On a hunting expedition to commemorate the event, an unseen person apparently shoots at Lucas and misses him. Blinded by the setting sun, Lucas is unable to identify his attacker, who flees. A moment later the unknown shooter, real or metaphorical, is gone.
- Mads Mikkelsen as Lucas
- Alexandra Rapaport as Nadja, Lucas' girlfriend
- Thomas Bo Larsen as Theo, Lucas' best friend
- Lasse Fogelstrøm as Marcus, Lucas' son
- Susse Wold as Grethe
- Lars Ranthe as Bruun
- Anne Louise Hassing as Agnes, Theo's wife
- Bjarne Henriksen as Ole
- Annika Wedderkopp as Klara, Theo's daughter
- Ole Dupont as Landowner / Lawyer
The film was produced by Zentropa for 20 million Danish kroner. It received co-production support from Sweden's Film i Väst and Zentropa International Sweden. Further support came from the Danish Film Institute, DR, Eurimages, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, the Swedish Film Institute, Sveriges Television and the MEDIA Programme.
Box office
The Hunt premiered on 20 May 2012 at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, as the first Danish-language film in the main competition since 1998. Mads Mikkelsen won the Best Actor Award at Cannes. Given its estimated $3.8 million budget, the film was a financial success; in total, it earned more than $16 million including $7.9 million in Denmark. In the United States, it was shown in 47 theaters and earned $613,308.
Critical response
The film received universal acclaim. It has an approval rating of 94% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 129 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9 out of 10. The website's critical consensus states: "Anchored by Mads Mikkelsen's sympathetic performance, The Hunt asks difficult questions with the courage to pursue answers head on." The film also has a score of 77 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews".
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