Early in Christoffer Boe's debut feature Reconstruction, Nikolaj Lie Kaas meets a woman in a bar and runs through his standard pick-up patter, including his standard acknowledgment that the patter is a put-on, followed by his explanation of how the woman is supposed to react. Later, in the same bar but not necessarily at the same time, Kaas shows a woman (played by the same actress, Maria Bonnevie) three identical snapshots of a female nude, and explains that the pictures represent the choices that everyone faces. In between those scenes, Boe inserts overhead shots of city blocks with the names of the characters and their current locations labeled, map-like, and he has Krister Henriksson, playing an author, occasionally narrate the story of Kaas' two-timing relationship with two women, both played by Bonnevie.
Boe positions Reconstruction at the intersection of Krzysztof Kieslowski, David Lynch, Wong Kar-Wai, and Lars Von Trier, aiming for a moody, stylish meditation on personal identity and the capriciousness of artists (a.k.a. "God"). A third of the way through the film, after he sleeps with Henriksson's wife, Kaas wakes to find that the world has shifted: His apartment has disappeared and his girlfriend literally doesn't know who he is anymore. Fairly rapidly, Reconstruction changes from an elliptical urban romance to one of those aggravating Twilight Zone what-ifs, where half the screen time is devoted to the hero saying "Don't you remember me?" to old friends, who invariably say, "Mister, I've never seen you before in my life."
Boe's love story gets lost amid the complex structural geometry, and though Henriksson describes Kaas' wrenching romantic confusion at one point with a glib "It's all a film but still it hurts," Reconstruction doesn't evoke much emotion beyond cool ennui. At that, the film excels. Boe won the prize for "best first film" at Cannes two years ago, undoubtedly because of the visual impact of Reconstruction's high grain, muted color, and tight framing, which duplicates the look and tone of an avant-garde perfume ad, complete with a chill-out soundtrack. Early on, the film is about the city at night, and attractive young people walking with confidence from bars to subways to penthouse liaisons. Later, following the train of Kaas' philosophical teasing, Reconstruction becomes about those same young people as they quietly brood and question themselves. The first movie is better.