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Danish director Christoffer Boe takes self-reflexivity one step farther in this film, which opens with August (Krister Hendricksson), a jaded novelist, describing the fiction to follow in a portentous voiceover reminiscent of Lars von Trier’s Zentropa. Alex (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), a photographer, rides the metro with his girlfriend, Simone (Maria Bonnevie). Without explanation, he slips away to follow, Aimee (Bonnevie again), a stunning stranger and, it happens, August’s wife. Throw in a few references to Orpheus and add spy-satellite images used as transitional establishment shots and you have "That Obscure Project of Desire" or "Next Door at Marienbad." The film takes a welcome Kafka-esque turn in the middle when Alex finds that his apartment has disappeared and all of his acquaintances no longer recognize him, an anarchic element that, along with Bonnevie’s haunting performance, rescues the film from contrived pretentiousness. In Danish and Swedish with English subtitles. (90m)
BY PETER KEOUGH
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