FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Thomas Vinterberg - The Hunt 

Mads Mikkelsen's face radiates an icy coldness with his slitted eyes, weather-beaten skin and thin lips. He looks like a Westerner, and one of the bad guys at that. But in Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt, he gets to show off his versatility and go beyond the exterior. Here, Mikkelsen wears wire-rimmed glasses with his hair combed forward. the kindly employee of a daycare center who is falsely accused of exposing himself to a child. The Hunt is a portrait of a decent man confronted by a world that has decided to treat him indecently. Basically, he leads a contented (if not perfect) life in the small town. He is a trained teacher, but became unemployed when the local school closed (unbelievable!!!). Now he works at the daycare center, where he takes care of the kids during the day and goes out for a drink with the parents in the evening. He exudes a quiet, reserved warmth. His caring is genuine. Friends worry because he lives alone, in the house where his ex and child once lived. Then everything changes. One of his charges tells him in a fit of rage; he - Lucas - touched him! We know from the beginning that this is a lie. While Lucas goes about his work, the daycare center is busy investigating. A psychologist is called in. Damage control. Finally, he is called in. His boss explains what is going on behind his back. Lucas is ordered to take a few days off. His parents are called and informed about the incident... Everything develops like a snowball system. The parents are convinced that Lucas is guilty. If The Hunt wasn't so directly staged, it could be made into a wonderful satire about the so-called helicopter parents. But everything only gets worse and worse. The community believes a predatory pedophile is up to no good in the neighborhood. That's exactly the theme of The Hunt: False Guilt. Luca's innocence is irrelevant. He is treated like a criminal. He is forced to feel guilty for a crime he did not commit. After all, the world is full of evil, as is established towards the end. Comforting words that have a disturbing effect. Under the pretext of making evil disappear, the "community" itself commits evil.