Aching Hearts

Jonas and Agnete commit to one another while still at school. As others shyly experiment with first love and desire, make tacit attempts at more serious forms of togetherness, they try to make their relationship work, hard as it is. A semi-official, 1960s Viborg-set sequel to Tree of Knowledge, in that some of the characters are based on the same friends and acquaintances of Malmros (to give one example: Tree of Knowledge’s Helge and Aching Hearts’s Toke are both inspired by a certain Niels Holm-Nielsen). Like its predecessor, Aching Hearts was shot over the course of three years, so the protagonists could age in front of the camera. The main difference between the films is Malmros’s own maturing as a director: while Tree of Knowledge is carried by a certain spontaneity and eager curiosity, Aching Hearts has a laid-back quality with urgency and decisiveness – an unhurried precision; a feel for the essential that comes with experience.

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