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Chicago International Film Fest - Take 2
A Soap (En Soap, Pernille Fischer Christensen, Denmark)
Set entirely in the claustrophobic foxhole of two one-bedroom flats in Denmark, A Soap exploits the conventions and techniques of soap operas (extreme facial close-ups, dramatic pauses, black-and-white recaps and predictions of the characters’ dilemmas told through a velvety male voice-over) at the same time that it dismisses them as cliché and melodramatic. A debut film by Pernille Fischer Christensen, which won the Silver Bear award at Berlin, this episode involves an unlikely pair: Charlotte (Trine Dyrholm), a recently single and fiercely independent beauty salon owner, and Ulrik, neé Veronica (David Dencik), a lonesome pre-op male-to-female transsexual, who is an avid soap opera watcher by day and a dominatrix by night.
The lighting in the two apartments is particularly arresting, as the viewer is led from the bright lights of Charlotte’s all white flat into the barely discernible gloom of Veronica’s. I wasn’t sure if this was somehow indicative of Veronica’s hopeless state—she tries to kill herself early on in the film, which sparks an uneasy relationship with Charlotte, who is impervious and insensitive to Veronica’s gender. Charlotte’s brusque and sometimes volatile mannerisms don’t bode well with Veronica’s subdued, vulnerable demeanor at first, but the duo eventually manages to find common ground—in their isolation and in the American soap opera that they both take to watching on a daily basis.
Rejecting the over-the-top antics of the soap opera while paradoxically engaging in its subversion, A Soap is a languorous, compelling and unconventional romance that, like all good soaps, doesn’t really end, instead leaving the almost-lovers in a cliff-hanger nuzzle just as Charlotte is about to confess her deepest, darkest secret to Veronica. While it’s entirely obvious that Charlotte is about to give Veronica advice on how to soften her cuticles, Christensen’s wry directorial talents leave the ending open to interpretation, an anti-climax well suited to the film’s spoofy disposition.
The use of nothing but close-up facial shots gives the film a sense of eerie intimacy, a kind of peeping-tom immediacy that both frightens and intrigues. The proximity also functions as a marker of Charlotte’s and Veronica’s physical and emotional isolation, though they both ardently resist each other’s companionship in various ways throughout the course of the film. Amidst a “curtain dance party” where endearments were exchanged, (my favorite was: “Hey bitch, want me to fuck you?”) the couple slowly and uneasily crosses the boundaries of their neighborly relationship into something indefinably pure and tender.
Some nitty-gritty questions I had were concerning Charlotte’s tendency to flash her neighbors at random and why she wore the same bra everyday (and I only know that because of aforementioned flashing). Other than that though, A Soap is delightfully engaging, a compassionate yet chintzy take on the sex-obsessed, romantic entanglements of soaps and the unlikely heroines they produce.
Love Sick (Legaturi Bolnavicioase, Tudor Giurgiu, Romania)
In the grim tradition of gothic lesbian cinema, which gave rise to such films as Heavenly Creatures, My Summer of Love and many many lesbian vampire movies, Tudor Giurgiu’s Love Sick is an ambitious, though somewhat skewed, debut feature film.
Weaving a tapestry of taboos, staggering emotional feats and heated minglings with French literature, Giurgiu tackles the controversial subjects of lesbian sexuality and incest in a matter-of-fact demeanor in his bristly, confrontational story. Alex (Ioana Barbu) is a bright and studious working-class girl from the rural countryside, who meets Cristina (Maria Popistasu) her chic and charismatic polar opposite, at college in Bucharest. A budding romance develops between them before Alex discovers Cristina’s not so filial love for her brother Sandu (Vache Vema), which is also a diminutive for the name Alex. Cristina and Alex’s relationship drives Sandu crazy with jealousy and rage, which erupts in a climactically violent scene between the three of them, Alex’s parents and Sandu’s aloof older girlfriend and boss, who urinates behind a chicken coop before shrugging the whole thing off with a “Sorry for the fuss.”
A multi-tiered wedding cake of meta-narration, the story for Love Sick was hatched from a centuries-old French novel, which in turn was inspired by true events in Romania, which in turn inspired the contemporary semi-autobiographical novel by Cecilia Stefanescu. For all the contentious issues that revolve around Love Sick, the film is devoid of any sort of commentary concerning what is at stake for the characters, choosing instead to offer an almost claustrophobic commingling between the triangle of lovers and their guarded lives. This is one the film’s greatest shortcomings. By presenting such issues without any kind of critical perception or even dialogue, one is left to wonder whether they function as little more than sensationalizing tactics. The one scene that touches on the subject is when Alex and Cristina debate the French novella “René” by Chateaubriand, which also involves an incestuous brother-sister relationship. Ironically, it is Alex who champions the lovers’ actions, while Cristina vehemently condemns them. Cristina coolly dismisses Alex’s arguments as romantic and idealistic, while denying that the story was about love at all. This meta-textual foray into French literature, which adds some intellectual luster to the titillation, also foreshadows the lovers’ own affair, which meets a similar fate.
The second shortcoming of the film involves the romantic relationship between Cristina and Alex, which is hardly recognizable as romantic at all. I wasn’t even sure if they were lovers until Cristina said, “Do you want me to stick my tongue in your mouth in front of your parents?” Up until that point, however, the involvement of tongues was scantly implicit at best. I guess if I wanted tongues, I should have rented Vampire Lesbian Kickboxers (if only it weren’t ALWAYS checked out at Blockbuster).
Despite the gloss, Love Sick is a captivating film and Giurgiu proves to be a promising director. The film was well received in Romania, which is a fairly conservative country. Giurgiu noted in a Q & A after the screening, “Well, it didn’t beat Star Wars or anything, but it was a success.”
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