This was a very touching movie for me, especially because of the way it deals with violence and what being a “strong man” actually means.

Anton is probably the strongest person in the movie, at least in the way I see him. He is a doctor who regularly leaves his family in Denmark to work at a refugee camp in Africa, where he deals with things much more horrible than anything happening back home. And yet the movie constantly puts him in situations where strength does not mean being the person who can hit the hardest.

Meanwhile, his son Elias is being bullied at school. Then Christian arrives, becomes his friend, and has a completely different understanding of how these things should be handled.

Christian’s philosophy is basically:

“If you hit them hard enough the first time, they won’t dare to hit you again.”

And honestly, that line fits the movie almost too well.

There is one scene I remember especially clearly. Anton gets into an argument with an aggressive mechanic, who slaps him in front of the children. Later Anton actually goes back there with the boys.

It almost feels like the setup for the usual movie scene where the father finally shows everyone that he is not a coward.

Except Anton does the exact opposite.

The mechanic hits him again, and Anton still refuses to fight back. He basically lets this man make an idiot of himself while trying to show the boys that being able to hurt someone does not automatically make a person strong.

I really like that scene because I am not even completely sure how I feel about Anton’s decision.

Part of me admires him for it. Another part understands perfectly why Christian looks at the situation and thinks, No, this is ridiculous. Hit him back.

And I think that is where the movie becomes much more interesting than simply saying “violence is bad.”

The same question follows Anton to the refugee camp, only there the consequences of violence are obviously much more serious. He is forced to deal with a brutal warlord while trying to hold onto the same principles he wants to teach the children back home.

There is something I really like about putting those two worlds next to each other. A school bully, an angry mechanic and a warlord are obviously not the same thing, but the question underneath them is similar:

When someone does something terrible, what does refusing revenge actually mean?

And at what point does refusing to fight back stop being morality and start becoming passivity?

I am not sure the movie gives me a completely satisfying answer to that, but I think that is also why I still remember it.

Even the original Danish title is Hævnen, meaning Revenge. The international title, In a Better World, sounds almost hopeful in comparison. Susanne Bier herself has said that the Danish title emphasizes the harsher side of the film while the English title emphasizes its hopefulness.

I actually like having both titles in mind.

One is about the world these characters already live in.

The other one is perhaps about the world Anton is trying, with varying degrees of success, to believe in.