E-Mail This Article to a Friend THE GREEN BUTCHERS

For about its first third, Danish filmmaker Anders Thomas Jensen’s black comedy seems like a melancholy, ruefully funny shaggy-dog story — not unlike Lone Scherfig’s Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself, which Jensen scripted. Then, in a moment of panic, Butchers changes its recipe and becomes the Danish-pastry version of Delicatessen. Two assistant butchers, Bjarne (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and Svend (Mads Mikkelsen), leave their abusive and obnoxious boss, "Sausage" Holger (asked the secret of his signature product, he says, "Imagine being stuffed up your own asshole . . . "), and start their own establishment. Business is slow until, by "accident," Svend dishes out his special "chickie-wickies," which prove an astounding success. Is it the meat or the marinade? Jensen doesn’t balk at the more obvious macabre humor, but he also indulges in details and characterizations — the relationship between the Norman Bates–like Bjarne and Tina (Bodil Jørgensen), a cemetery worker, evokes Wilbur’s skewed romances — that are weird but delightfully apt. Not for every taste, but a hearty dish for the daring. In Danish with English subtitles. (100 minutes)