Anders Thomas Jensen and the Art of Escaping the Selfie

Paris – 16.07.2026: Anders Thomas Jensen makes a gentle demand of his audience. His films require viewers not to mistake laughter too quickly for harmlessness. With “The Last Viking“, which opened in France on 15 July, the Danish director returns with a black comedy in which family wounds, a criminal past and pop myths are intertwined in idiosyncratic fashion.

At its centre is Anker, played by Nikolaj Lie Kaas. After a long prison sentence, he searches for buried loot. The only person who might know the location is his brother Manfred, portrayed by Mads Mikkelsen. But Manfred lives in a different reality: he believes he is John Lennon. The search for money thus becomes a journey through memory, role-playing and the remarkably resilient bond between two brothers.

Jensen moves within the Danish cinematic universe that he has populated with familiar faces for years. Mikkelsen and Lie Kaas have already appeared before the camera for him several times; “The Last Viking” is their sixth collaboration. The cast also includes Sofie Gråbøl, Bodil Jørgensen, Lars Brygmann, Nicolas Bro and Søren Malling. It is an ensemble that understands the director’s grotesque tone without allowing it to become a mere parade of gags.

In a conversation about the film, Jensen regrets the present as a culture of selfies, in which the camera is constantly pointed at oneself. The remark also describes the small act of resistance embodied by his cinema. His characters are eccentric, damaged and occasionally obsessed with decidedly adventurous ideas. But they are never presented merely as flamboyant loners. Jensen is interested in how people look at one another – and how difficult it can be to break free from one’s own narrative.

For him, black comedy – humour at the edges of pain, violence or social uncertainty – is not a cold game. It is precisely the demands of the material that make room for tenderness. Mikkelsen, often cast internationally as a man of controlled menace, is able here to display his elastic comic talent. Lie Kaas counters him with a character whose hardness is less a trait than a protective layer.

The film’s German title remains English, but its point of departure is unmistakably Nordic: a world of laconic lines, skewed loyalties and a seriousness that trips itself up in the very next moment. The fact that Manfred wants to be John Lennon of all people is more than a gag. The Beatles fantasy opens up a space in which identity is not fixed, but appears as a fragile improvisation.

“The Last Viking” does not rely on the polished smoothness of contemporary cinema. The film is rough, playful and deliberately unpredictable. That is precisely where its appeal lies: Jensen turns the camera away from the self-portrait and towards others – their quirks, their grief and the strange attempts at rescue that family can sometimes make possible.