The Ape (2009) User Reviews

A spellbinding 80 minutes state of shock

[ozjeppe · 6/10 · 15 April 2014]

A 30-something man wakes up in agony with blood in his hands and clothes, only to get up and carry on ahead through his day at break-neck speed, ignoring all signs of disaster. A fever-pitch intensity follows that escalates into claustrophobic desperation within a first-person-perspective: what the hell has occurred?! OK, imagine the worst possible personal tragedy occurring the night before to a character like that... well, I give you 2 guesses! In all fairness to filmmaker Jesper Ganslandt, but the scenario of what has happened in this Swedish thriller-drama is to me VERY obvious after 15 minutes.

What is NOT obvious, though, are the surfacing, immediate reactions and actions of a person's mind after such a tragedy. And that turns this into a highly realistic, quite spellbinding state of shock for 80 minutes. The case-solving itself is not relevant, and for that reason, the greatest asset is a terrific and highly credible performance by Olle Sarri in the lead. He dissolves bit by bit in front of us through his 24-hour ordeal, like a modern-day Raskolnikov, but without the philosophical aftermath. So, we have indeed a thriller - but also a psychological drama.

And there is my main quibble: with a story (and an ending) like this, writer-director Ganslandt also leaves out all surrounding details like backgrounds, bonds, motives, etc. It cries for a social commentary context and an epilogue. I know its enclosed format certainly makes material for tons of discussions, but it leaves me a bit wanting.

All in all, quite impressive and a needful change of pace for the more poetic "Farväl Falkenberg"-filmmaker!

6/10 from Ozjeppe.

Extremely disturbing film

[weissedel · 5/10 · 11 February 2022]

This film was interesting, but extremely disturbing. Obviously that was intentional. We are never told the "why" of anything that takes place, except for some rather lame allusions.

This is not a film for the average viewer looking for a well explained, believable plot. Au contraire. This plot is intentional chaos.

Dark, disturbing and depressing drama!

[gabrielmillsom · 7/10 · 16 July 2023]

I have rated this film 7/10, but I'm honestly not sure I would recommend it to anybody. It left me feeling uneasy and a bit sad. However, is that not the hallmark of a good film? One that evokes strong feelings?

The film leaves some unanswered questions, such as what drove the protagonist to do what he did. Though, it is unclear if he even knows.

It is apparent that he has had some sort of a breakdown and that he is lonely. However, some of his actions don't fully make sense, but then perhaps they're not supposed to, to the rational mind. I think the bleakness of Scandinavia in what must be early spring or late autumn adds to the depressing ambience.

Gabriel Millsom.

Realistic but boring

[filipthepro · 2/10 · 24 October 2009]

I was in a mood for a weird movie when I went to see this one. What really disappointed me is that it's mostly just very realistic and slightly depressing.

Very little happens in the movie. It could have ended after 40 minutes and it wouldn't have changed the totality much at all. It wasn't exactly bad in the way that you get angry because it's stupid or anything like that but there really isn't any sense of a story unfolding.

I think it's a film that it OK to have seen but I didn't enjoy the experience very much. Don't watch it unless you want to see something made by film people for film people.

Bit of a waste of time not worth watching

[ben06 · 3/10 · 6 December 2021]

Man wakes up in bathroom on the floor and goes about his day as if nothing happened. Randomly has a few panic attacks before returning home and finding a injured body. Takes the boy to hospital and continues around town for a while then goes back to hospital..... Then it's the end... Pretty pointless.

Nervous breakdown

[joelstennabbcaesar · 9/10 · 3 April 2013]

I put on this movie without having read a single word about it, something that helped elevate "Apan" over almost everything I've seen so far this year. I never saw Jesper Ganslandts debut "Farväl Falkenberg" either, so I did not know anything about this up and coming swedes intentions with getting in to the movie business until yesterday. What he has accomplished with "Apan" is capturing the main character Kristers, Played by Swedish actor Olle Sarri, total nervous breakdown. You can feel the tone set by Ganslandt from the very first frame, and that's only the start of a descent towards the absolute darkest depths of the mind acted out with perfection by Olle Sarri.

If I were to compare what I experienced with this film to something else, the closest work would be Gaspar Noés "Enter The Void", in how the audience gets forced in to a character by means of filming and lack of added sounds and music. 20 minutes in, I felt the emotions portrayed by Olle Sarri, and how his decisions actually mattered to me. You become the broken individual on screen.

If you are interested in seeing a fantastically well perceived narrative of a broken mans broken life, this is for you. If you are susceptible to this kind of film, you will feel as empty and broken as the subject of this portrayal when you're done.

Waste of time!

[shameonyou-07829 · 1/10 · 28 February 2021]

Just don't waste your time. It is just not worth it. You wouldn't do yourself a favour.

Uncompromisingly dark character study

[Magenta_Bob · 8/10 · 6 January 2011]

A man wakes up in a bathroom. He seems disoriented and is covered in blood. He tries to pull himself together the best he can; he washes off the blood, he leaves the house, and carries on with his day. He goes to work, he goes shopping, he goes to work and he visits his mother. Meanwhile, he is ostensibly confused, afraid, in pain and full of anxiety.

Jesper Ganslandt's puzzling drama about an unknown man's odyssey is an uncompromisingly dark character study and one of the most unsettling Swedish films of the decade, at least. The intrusive and somewhat naturalistic direction, with a shaky, hand-held camera following the man from only a few feet's distance, creates a very unsettling feeling; it places the viewer right next to a person who could break down at any minute. This feeling is enhanced by the performance of the brilliantly casted Olle Sarri. Apart from being an excellent performance in itself, Sarri is mostly known for his role in a Swedish sitcom which creates a disturbing contrast to the character he plays here.

If I said that the viewer gets very close to the main character physically, we are certainly not invited into his mind. First of all, we are given very little information throughout the film about what has actually happened to the man. There is very little dialogue in the film, and much of it consists of hearing the main character talk on the phone. We only get to hear his side of the conversation, and he mostly says phrases like "yes" and "I will", which hardly leaves the audience with many clues. The few conversations that take place in person are either completely insignificant, or works on a symbolical level, such as the brilliant scene where a boy tells him about a dream he had, or when his mother is describing a painting she made – the former captures the recurring theme about alienation, whereas the latter suggests, and serves as a metaphor for, the man's possible assault on his son.

When the film is over, we hardly know more than we did from the start; at best, the things that we guessed from the start seem to have been true, if still far from obvious. This might leave some viewers frustrated or feeling robbed, but in a film that has constantly been designed to allow the audience to fill in the blanks, and as a closure to a brief and enigmatic glimpse of an unstable man's life, it fits perfectly.

Heavy influence of Haneke cinema on suppressed personality

[sarp-sozdinler · 8/10 · 20 February 2010]

There's always a recurring theme we witness in Haneke's films; life is brutal...

...and time to time, too painful to bear.

No need to be a careful eye; director Jesper Ganslandt is a follower of Haneke cinematography, which is based on solid psychoanalysis of both borderline human nature and structure of society with a complicated resolution of history. This what Ganslandt does in this film.

Krister is a man we see and pass by on the street in our everyday lives and also can be easily mixed with who we really are. An ordinary family man with a decent job and has what we call it a normal life. But, mostly, it's not what it seems above the surface. At the beginning of the movie, he wakes up in the middle of his own toilet with blood all over his clothes and place. Then we see him take off, do his everyday routine and go back home at the end of the day. And this is when we get it; the reason behind the blood on his clothes is a murder he has committed a night before. The murder of his wife and a plus. An attempted murder on his own kid.

From this part of the film we see Krister dealing with his own personality, which comes down to characteristic resolution that consists on his own past and how he perceived the term family, how he's been treated by his own parents, especially the mother. The mother is always the key, as in our lives as well, she forms a perfect picture of Oedipus. As a man who can only communicate with people through his headphone and not in person, Krister isn't a successful example of out-of-closet personality, and having a hard time to integrate it with his life as he's known it thus far, and eventually, end up in destroying his own family which is pointing out destroying his own past, and especially, again, the mother.

I think what makes this film stunning is that the amount of moments we see ourselves in Krister. Krister is who we are and who we are completes the character Krister wee witness in this movie. He can be any of us, if we consist on the theory of that most of us are homosexuals subliminally. This is a story of not being. Of not being yourself, not taking your sexual identity in your hands as you like...

...Of not being who you really are.

Some things to remember

[stensson · 8/10 · 29 October 2009]

There are movies you will remember through your whole life, almost every second of them. These films aren't always good, not if you ask your tasteful experienced mind. But you can't get them out of your head.

This is such a movie. It's about a very disturbed man. Probably he has done something terrible, but you can't be altogether sure. This is not about the action which has been and is to come, it's about a state of mind.

Olle Sarri is absolutely splendid and I haven't seen such a performance in a Swedish movie for quite long. He doesn't make you feel good and the film has absolutely no intention to do that for you. But you can anyway don't get it out of your head.

Dark, improvised, well played that will stay in your head

[ScottCalvin · 10/10 · 18 June 2011]

This is not the regular movie. Not in any way.

Some other review i read here, should add SPOILER on top, since some talk about the ending of the movie.

A man wakes up bloody, we don't know why or what has happened to him. He washes off and go to work. During the day we find out what has happened.

And this is hurtful to know as a viewer of the movie. Its painful and dark.

Olle Sarri, who in Sweden otherwise is known as a comedian working on television does in this movie a remarkable appearance as the ape. And why this is, is probably cause the character was mostly improvised. Some parts of the character were of course written down, but i know Sarri got a lot of freedom to create the character on set.

I have seen this movie several times. The first time i wondered what crap this was. But as someone said, the movie does not leave your head. I watched it again (knowing the whole plot), and i liked the movie.

Now i love the movie, and have seen it several times.