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Christoffer Boe's bold directorial debut seems to be channeling Ingmar Bergman and David Lynch in their most intellectually inaccessible states. Reconstruction is the sort of surreal film that forces your brain to contort into the oddest of shapes before its inevitable explosion. Not what you generally expect from a love story.
Nikolaj Lie Kaas plays Alex, a Danish photographer who is compelled to seek a night of passion with Aimee (Maria Bonnevie), a woman he spots on the subway. In so doing, he briefly chooses to forget about his present girlfriend, Simone (also Bonnevie in a dual role, which oddly enough, is the least confusing part of the film). A supernatural twist then has Simone and the rest of the world very literally forget about Alex, forcing him to frantically pursue the only person who still remembers him: Aimee.
The highly subjective story weaves in and out of time and reality somewhat arbitrarily, to the extent that it's far too mind numbing to be thought-provoking. In the end, Reconstruction is more about evoking a feeling of romantic yearning and desperation. With its strong performances and dramatic, noir-ish cinematography, it manages to capture those feelings perfectly, even if we're never sure exactly why.