Did Somebody Laugh?

In late 1930s Copenhagen, a young man with little work and few prospects drifts through a city that seems to offer him little more than the occasional meal and the comfort of his own daydreams. He survives on government relief and donations from a soup kitchen, letting his imagination carry him beyond the constraints of his day job. He spends hours at a cemetery, tracing the names on gravestones and letting the inscriptions speak in a language the living world rarely uses. Quiet and soft spoken, he is amenable to the advice of a friend who lives in a more intellectual orbit, yet he remains emotionally wary. A woman who shares her bed with him drags him toward something that might be love, but he resists full involvement. The city itself seems to watch his drift and wait for him to decide.

Directed by Henning Carlsen, this 1978 Danish drama sits in his tradition of social realism and intimate character studies. The film uses a stark, documentary style to render the pressures of poverty on a young man and his world, with performances that stay close to everyday speech and gesture.

Critics respond to its restrained approach that keeps emotion in check while exposing the ache of unemployment. The film centers on economic precarity, alienation, and the friction between memory and the present city. The cemetery sequences provide a quiet counterpoint to the living, turning inscriptions into a mirror for chance and failure in ordinary lives. The lead performance anchors the drama with patient vulnerability that avoids sensationalism and magnifies the small choices that shape a life.

In Danish cinema discussions the film is noted for its stark, humane depiction of a society edging toward conflict. It sits among a lineage of minimalist, character-driven works that ask what ordinary people endure and what remains when plans go awry, making room for memory and moral uncertainty.

Box office data for Did Somebody Laugh? is not widely published. The film appears to have had a modest release and limited international footprint, and its earnings are not well documented in mainstream sources.