In 1960s Denmark, an alcoholic playboy and a meek tax lawyer join forces to revolutionize the travel industry and alter the country’s political landscape, in this shocking, often hysterical, always compelling quasi-biopic.
Since his Camera d'Or-winning debut feature Reconstruction, Christoffer Boe has explored the power of memory — and its capacity to mould an individual's perception of reality. With his latest, the sometimes shocking, always-compelling quasi-biopic Sex, Drugs & Taxation, he examines collective memory, which, as it turns out, is equally as prone to delusion.
In 1960s Denmark, alcoholic playboy Simon Spies (Pilou Asbaek) and tax lawyer Mogens Glistrup (Nicolas Bro) both feel like outsiders. Together they form a partnership and set out to take over an airline, in the process changing not only aviation but the country's political landscape.
A surreal buddy movie gone awry, Sex, Drugs & Taxation reminds us that recent history is packed with ironies. A national symbol for sixties' decadence, Spies was perceived as a revolutionary hedonist who gave the miracle of flight to the masses by creating the region's first discount airline. Conversely, the arch-conservative Glistrup, despite his completely unpredictable political victories, was considered an embarrassing failure. Yet neither would have thrived without the other. At the heart of the movie is an unusual, influential and doomed friendship — a tragedy with tax laws and copious amounts of booze and LSD. Boe crafts an atmosphere that oscillates between stoned amazement and a creeping sense of horror.
Sex, Drugs & Taxation is one of the most daring movies to come out of Denmark since the Pusher trilogy — and it's certainly the only one you'll see this year where a man in bathrobe chases off a full-grown gorilla by waving his penis at it.
STEVE GRAVESTOCK
Screenings
Scotiabank 3
The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema
The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema
Scotiabank 2