Take It Easy (1986)

Off-List: Take It Easy

The first additional movie for 1986 is the Danish pick. I ended up selecting “Take It Easy”, although I had never watched it before and selecting it solely from its interesting premise. In hindsight, I probably should have selected a different movie or skipping the Danish pick altogether for 1986.

It is the summer of 1945. The war in Europe has just ended and peacetime life is bubbling out like spring after a long winter. In the jazz bar “München” in Copenhagen, the local jazz band led the famous (in Denmark at least) pianist Leo Mathisen (Eddie Skoller) is setting the beat to the party. The patrons include rich and poor, quite a few American and British soldiers and our “heroes”, Herbert (Nikolaj Egelund) and Allan (Martin Elley).

Herbert and Martin are high school students who are more busy enjoying life than taking care of their school. They are black marketeers, which partly explains why they hang out at “München”, they chase girls, another reason, and especially Herbert wants desperately to be a jazz drummer.

To finance this ambition, he needs money, and his scheme is to rob his single mother (Helle Herz) of her valuables, selling it to the foreign solders for contraband and selling that at München.

I understand quite well that the movie is trying to give us the explosion of life after the war. Love is in the air, not just among the randy youth. Music is everywhere. Hope and optimism as symbolized by the vibrant summer pictures. Herbert and Allan are in that respect exponents for this invigorating springtime, they feel like kings to whom everything is possible and I suppose we should be loving them for it.

The problem here is that particularly Herbert is completely without a moral compass. One of the patrons at München is accusing him of lacking respect, but it is a lot worse than that. Herbert is a nihilist or maybe a narcissist who has eyes for only his own pleasure and ambition and cares nothing for what is right or wrong or other people’s feelings. That may be a good description of the average teenager, but with Herbert it is taken to the extreme and that is the essential problem with this movie. How can we care for a person who cares for nobody but himself?

I will not list all the many examples Herbert gives us of this nature, that would be tedious and pointless, but trust me, it is everywhere. What takes the cake though is when he sells his pianist mother’s beloved Steinway piano to get money for his drums. Although his friends convince him to get the piano back, his efforts are half hearted and rather than console his devastated mother, he goes to enjoy himself at the jazz bar.

For half the movie, I am waiting for two possible, redeeming outcomes: 1. Herbert get his comeuppance or 2. Herbert realize what an ass he is and aims for some self-improvement. We get nothing of the kind. Instead, the movie just ends...

I do not like Herbert one bit, but I am supposed to, and the movie cannot convince me.

This is a pretty important point against the movie. What does work though is the portrayal and atmosphere of the post-war period and especially the jazz music. For a Dane, much of the music played at the club are classics. Oldies, but classic, nonetheless. If this was enough to carry a movie, this would be a good movie. Unfortunately, it is merely background to what I can see only as a terrible story.

I do not think I will recommend “Take It Easy”.