"Blomsterfangen" or "The Glass House Prisoner" is an award-winning short film from denmark in the Danish language and this one was written and directed by Jens Arentzen. However, the star here is Mads Mikkelsen who was around the age of 30 when this was made back in 1996, so way over 20 years old already. MM plays the male co-lead next to Jens Okking, a successful late Danish actor who plays MM's father here. The old man is inside prison and there is little to no connection with his son except what he hears from the man's mother. And according to that, it sounds like he has really achieved something in life. It is not entirely clear why the mother would say that. To calm down the father. or to make her upbringing not look too bad? But it isn't too important either. Anyway, none of it is true and as we find out the son is a career criminal, who ends up in jail with his dad after being caught by the police. And he will stay there for a long time. There is work to do by the inmates of a jail too, so not too surprisingly, the duo end up together not just in the jail, but in the greenhouse here. Well, for me admittedly that was a bit too much of a coincidence honestly. The same jail is already dancing on the edge, but yeah, their blood connection cannot really explain that to me. Overall, it is a very bleak, sobering and grim little movie with no intention to make the audiences smiles, let alone laugh, but rather have them feel the protagonosts' pain. But it is only partially successful to that regard. Even if the chemistry between the two main characters and their performances (as well as the mother's performance) weren't bad by any means, I felt story-wise something was missing to make me really appreciate this film and recommend checking it out. Even at under 45 minutes, there were moments when it dragged, maybe because all minor characters were really just there without anything to them except bossting the lead duo's characters. Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad film by any means, but I also would not say it is a good one, so I am not too surprised it did not receive as much awards attention as some other Danish (short) movies from around that time. They have always been a successful nation to that regard, especially with the Oscars. And I was also surprised I did not like this one so much because usually I am a sucker for Mads Mikkelsen films, but yeah, maybe here he wasn't as alpha and as dominant enough yet the way I like him. With which I am not saying he is giving a weak performance for sure. My fellow Mikkelsen fans can still check this one out and hopefully they will appreciate it more than I did. I give it a thumbs-down as a whole. Not recommended to everybody else. Oh yeah and subtitles are crucial unless youh are fluent in Danish, a very dialogue-driven film.
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