Nostalgia Kinky

Amongst the most moving home video releases of the year, Altered Innocence‘s special edition Blu-ray Angst by August collects the extraordinary duo Zappa (1983) and Twist and Shout (1984) from Danish Oscar winning director Bille August. Featuring lovely transfers and some solid supplements, Angst by August is a real winning release and brings two very special coming of age films back to American shores for the first time in decades.

Four decades before he won an Oscar for his 1987 drama Pelle the Conqueror, Bille August was born just after the war in Brede, Denmark. Always passionate about the arts, specifically the movies and photography, August got his cinematic education at the prestigious National Film School of Denmark, which led him to early work as a cinematographer. In the years leading up to his breakthrough third feature, Zappa, August directed two early films, In My Life (1978) and the television production May (1982). In My Life had done fairly well for the young August but it was nothing compared to Zappa, which got him to Cannes for the first time and nearly earned him an Oscar nomination for foreign film.

Zappa began life as a 1977 novel by Bjarne Reuter. It was the first of a trilogy marking the dramatic coming of age story between a group of young teenagers. August ended up making perfect adaptations of the first two books, with the second being Twist and Shout. These two acclaimed films made August’s career, leading him to decades worth of evocative work. Seeing them now all these years later, via this sparkling new Blu-ray, is a very special experience.

Often described as the Danish Stand by Me, Zappa is imho the darker of the two films found on the Angst by August set and my personal favorite. Concerning the complicated relationship between Bjørn, Mulle and an especially cruel Steen, Zappa is a remarkable film. Disturbing and haunting, Zappa is amongst the most honest coming of age films from the eighties and its frank and often uncomfortable depictions of bullying will be painfully relatable to many viewers. Thankfully shorn of hollow Hollywood coming of age cliches, Zappa is a tough but extremely rewarding watch.

Featuring spellbinding photography by Jan Weincke, Zappa captures all of the youthful confusion and frustrations of the late fifties/early sixties as American Rock and Roll was connecting kids all across the world. It is indeed early American rock that powers Zappa’s soundtrack, although this is nothing like say American Graffiti as its nostalgia is much more grounded and sober. Featuring a trio of astonishing youthful performances from Adam Tønsberg, Morten Hoff and Peter Reichhardt, Zappa is a real powerhouse…subtle but still overwhelming.

Working off his own script that he’d adapted with the novel’s original author, August directs Zappa with both a gentle and commanding hand. This is a very adult film about childhood and August handles the material with such remarkable conviction and courage. Rock and Roll soundtrack and comparisons to American films aside, Zappa is as far removed from Hollywood’s false and condescending view of children as imaginable and it works so much the better for it.

While it is early American rock stars like Ricky Nelson that supply the songs for Zappa, it is the incredibly lyrical and poetic score by Classical composer Bo Holten that gives the film extra added allure. Holten has done everything throughout his celebrated career from composing operas to musicals to symphonies. His film work is fairly limited but his compositions for both Zappa and Von Trier’s later The Element of Crime (1984) are fantastic achievements. It is just as hard to imagine either Zappa or Twist and Shout without his themes in between the classic rock songs.

For anyone who grew up exclusively with American coming of age films, Zappa’s very adult situations concerning children might be genuinely shocking. Zappa isn’t a film about compromise though, this is a work centered on truth. Despite its very adult themes, Zappa received major international distribution deals upon its release. This included the Netherlands, where August was interviewed by the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblaad in April of 1985 noting:

“In my film I tell the story of three young people who have to compete with the growing prosperity of the 1960s. They have difficulty separating the difference between games and reality. At decisive moments, parents fail to answer their children’s calls for help. They do this not on purpose, but through a lack of affection and understanding. The attitude has cruel consequences for the three boys…as does the materialistic thinking of the period meaning that people were only concerned with themselves and had no time for their fellow human beings.”

Dutch critics praised the film, August and the cast and this kind of acclaim followed the film nearly everywhere upon its release. For its time in Canada, The Ottawa Citizen called the film powerful, going so far as to compare it to Munch’s painting The Scream.

Frequently featured in the Canadian press upon the near simultaneous releases of Zappa and Twist and Shout, August even found himself compared to Bergman in this period, mainly due to these two incredible films. Within a decade August was working with his greatest cinematic hero.

The powerful Zappa even managed a theatrical release here in the States, something that would be an absolute impossibility in today’s climate. Even back in 1984 though, puritanical American attitudes gave the film a much more mixed reaction than it had been given in Europe. Here are a collection of vintage reviews reflecting this:

Zappa played sporadically throughout the States, including a number of festivals, throughout the mid-eighties. Its highest profile review came from Janet Maslin in The New York Times where she wrote, “Mr. August has made Zappa a suspenseful, moving drama, with concerns that are as troubling as they are universally recognizable.”
I completely agree. Zappa is an incredibly masterful film and a very special work of art.

Save for a briefly available 2005 DVD release from Home Vision Entertainment that is long out of print, both Zappa and Twist and Shout have been hard to access here in the States making this new Blu-ray combo most welcome. I’ll get to Twist and Shout in a bit but this restoration for Zappa is gorgeous and perfectly rendered. Zappa is such a special film and it is great to see it treated with such care and devotion by Altered Innocence for, what is I believe, its HD debut.

Arriving just a year after Zappa was Twist and Shout. Taking place just a couple of years after the events of the first film, Twist and Shout proved to be even more popular than Zappa in Denmark, becoming a major box-office winner upon its release. In the years since both films release, Twist and Shout has managed the rare act of becoming a follow-up more well known than its predecessor and, like Zappa, it is an incredibly distinct and extraordinary work.

Whereas Zappa was powered by American fifties rock, it is the British Invasion of the sixties that fuels Twist and Shout. Following Bjorn and Kirsten from Zappa, both played wonderfully again by Adam Tønsberg and Ulrikke Bondo, Twist and Shout turns what was essentially a coming of age character study into a cinematic study of how the conservative fifties gave way to the permissive sixties. Both films work perfectly well separately but taken together they form a powerfully poetic and epic human drama…comparable to the great film epics and certainly reminiscent of Bergman.

On purely cinematic and narrative levels, Twist and Shout is a more mature work than Zappa. Centered on Bjorn’s first true love, and the devastating effect it has, Twist and Shout is more focused than Zappa as well despite it having the longer run-time of the two films. All that said, I personally found Zappa a more brilliant and unsettling film although Twist and Shout is a masterful follow-up. I totally understand why Jordan Cronk admits to preferring it to Zappa via his excellent video essay on this new Blu-ray.

Like Zappa, Twist and Shout is an absolutely beautifully performed film with no performance ringing hollow. The entire ensemble shines, with special mention going to Camilla Søeberg, who plays Bjorn’s new love Anna with a haunting authenticity. Søeberg is tremendous in the film, appearing in perhaps the most demanding scene of the entire saga. This was Søeberg’s debut and she’d go onto have a decades long career.

Amazingly for Adam Tønsberg and Ulrikke Bondo, these two works represent close to the only theatrical features the two made.

Also like Zappa, Twist and Shout is photographed impeccably once again by Jan Weincke. A more wintry film than Zappa, the sometimes snowbound Twist and Shout is so utterly gorgeous to look at from the early dance hall sequences to the views of an incredible autumnal Swedish seaside location. On a technical level alone, both Zappa and Twist and Shout are top of the line productions where it looks like every dime of their relatively small budgets went directly to the screen. These aren’t corporate made products and it shows.

August’s films in general have benefited greatly from the sharp eyed cutting skills of multi-award winning editor Janus Billeskov Jansen and that is certainly the case for these films. Both films are paced wonderfully well, methodical and so considered but not at all laborious. This Altered Innocence Blu-ray was just a real joy to watch and I loved both these films very much.

Twist and Shout became a SMASH hit in Denmark…a real touchstone film for an entire generation and it is easy to see why. I wish more films from my youth had been this adult, honest and overwhelmingly cinematic. Critical reaction was again mostly strong, although like Zappa English language critics were more tempered. Even Roger Ebert failed to see just how great the film was, although he noted “this isn’t simply a teenage love story; it’s much deeper and more serious than that.” in his baffling 2.5 star review. Janet Maslin again disagreed hailing the film in The New York Times like she had Zappa. Twist and Shout had a much higher profile release than Zappa outside of Denmark, including here in the States. Here is a small selection of related clippings from the time I gathered.

Going along with the great two HD scans on Angst by August, Altered Innocence have produced a couple of new valuable extras. Cronk’s aforementioned video essay is terrific…short at only ten minutes but still a very in depth look at August’s early career, these films, similiar Danish works and Bille’s work since. Cronk packs a lot of information in this essay and I learned a lot! I especially appreciated Cronk’s recommendations for other similar movies. I’m really looking forward to checking out the films of Stefan Henszelman!

A number of trailers are also on hand but the main extra found on Angst by August is an in depth new 30 minute interview with Bille August himself. Speaking in perfect English, August discusses his life, career, influences and mainly these two films. It’s a pretty exhaustive look at this period in his career and it’s a very enjoyable and informative watch. I was really glad August discussed the music in the films and how important Rock was as force for change for young people. Watching him still geek out a bit over The Beatles (who play such a large spiritual role in Twist and Shout) is a kick. This interview is a great addition to appreciating and understanding these two masterful films.

Angst by August is amongst the best Blu-ray releases of the year and I’m grateful to have been able to discover both these two fine films looking and sounding so great via this wonderful disc. I couldn’t find a direct listing for it currently at Altered Innocence’s Website but it is now on sale at MVD.

-Jeremy Richey, November 2025-