The third official film from Denmark's ballyhooed "Dogme 95" collective – a group of filmmakers dedicated to a cinematic "vow of chastity" in which they only shoot on location with handheld cameras, use no artificial lighting or post production sound, etc. – is the most mainstream of the bunch, and it's no great wonder: Kragh-Jacobsen is a veteran filmmaker and onetime mentor to Dogme founders Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg. Significantly older than both of his disciples, his interpretation of the Dogme aesthetic is a generally refreshing experience, because instead of seeing some provocateur at work, you're instead watching a regular filmmaker free himself of the usual formalistic ties and have fun. Which is what the Dogme philosophy is supposed to be all about.
That said, I feel that, were this film not part of a well-publicized film movement, nobody would pay much attention to Mifune, for it isn't very effective. Not to say that it's bad, just not particularly stirring. (Vinterberg's shattering The Celebration, the first Dogme film, has perhaps spoiled me.)
The story: a young businessman named Kresten, newly married to a wealthy, shallow woman, receives a call on his wedding night that his estranged father has died. As we follow Kresten away from the city to make funeral arrangements, we learn that his father was a dirt-poor farmer living out in the countryside. We also learn that Kresten has a mentally retarded older brother still living on the farm. Thrown into the mix is a runaway prostitute whom Kresten hires to take care of his brother, along with her brother, a vicious teenage boy with a nasty sense of humor.
Don't think Rain Man, at least not entirely: Mifune (named after a childhood game Kresten used to play with his brother, where he would imitate Toshiro Mifune in The Seven Samurai) is about owning up to one's past, accepting one's identity, and rebuilding a sense of family. Well-acted and heartfelt, the film nevertheless feels a little too precious (often the case when actors portray the mentally handicapped), but it's lively and unpredictable and a worthy night out, especially if you haven't seen a Dogme film and want a fairly painless introduction to the movement.