TLVFest day 5: I’m standing just outside the Cinematheque, where the festival action is going strong. Movies inside, and lots of conversation outside. A good looking Tel Aviv family walks by: two 30-something Dads and their cute toddler, accompanied by two small dogs on matching red leashes. They stop to greet a friend. After hugs all around the friend points at the dogs and asks: “Which is the male and which is the female?”
That binary division is deep, deep, deep in our culture and most of us automatically think of the world in terms of male and female; or perhaps more to the point: male or female, because you have to be one or the other, right?
It makes sense then that Sebastian, the protagonist of Ester Martin Bergsmark’s Something Must Break, tells the viewer from the start “I’m not from here,” because Sebastian must belong to some other place, a place where sexuality and identity are viewed differently; where male and female are not mutually exclusive. Sebastian lives in at least two worlds: black cap and baggy uniform at work, pearls and pink embroidered jackets after hours. Sebastian feels stuck in the endless cycle of work, earn a pittance, spend it on forgetting about the boredom of work. But beneath Sebastian’s silent diffidence, are turbulent feelings, raging desires and a longing to love and be loved.
Ester Martin Bergsmark draws the viewer into Sebastian’s world with the camera. Jerky, sometimes loosely focused scenes with a documentary feel are juxtaposed with intense close ups and extremely stylized shots of sex scenes. Saga Becker imbues Sebastian with an ethereal punk beauty, and all the allure of ambiguity, eyes wide with a never-ending need, or flashing with reckless flair. The plot thickens when Sebastian is rescued from a beating by Andreas, a devotee of drink until you drop, who is dead-drop handsome, and don’t you know, he’s “not gay.”
It’s a sweet coming of age love story, from a 20-something urban punk perspective, with some post-adolescent delinquency and bodily harm thrown in for good measure. The sound track is meticulous and effective, from the gritty-girly pop sound of Tami Tamaki, to the deafening roar of leaves in the wind, and Sebastian’s voice, a poetic inner monologue layered throughout the film in voice-over. There is something inside Sebastian that wants to die, something that wants to be born.
Sebastian comes across as fragile and needy, beautiful and lost. But there is something in the tenacity of this need, the kind of obsession that leads Sebastian to kiss the muddy footprint of a lover. Ultimately, Sebastian’s powerful need is also just that: powerful.
Something Must Break will be screened again on Saturday, June 14th at 21:00. The film is shown along with the short (13 min) film A Last Farewell, directed by Casper Andreas. Tickets may be ordered via this link: http://www.tlvfest.com/en/?p=3632
Something Must Break (Sweden, 90 min, 2014, Swedish with English and Hebrew subtitles)
Director: Ester Martin Bergsmark; Screenplay: Eli Leven and Ester Martin Bergsmark, inspired by the novel “You Are the Roots That Sleep Beneath My Feet and Hold the Earth in Place” by Leven; Cinematography (color): Lisabi Fridell, Minka Jakerson; Editing: Ester Martin Bergsmark, Andreas Nilsson, Marlene Billie Andreasen, Hanna Storby; Music supervisor, Rasmus Thord; Production designer, Elin Magnusson; Costume designer, Erik Annerborn; Sound, Jess Wolfsberg; Casting, Siri Hjorton-Wagner, Alexi Carpentieri; Cast: Saga Becker, Iggy Malmborg, Shima Niavarani, Mattias Ahlen. Festivals: Festival Rotterdam 2014 – The Tiger Award for Best Film; Festival Goteborg 2014 – Prize Mai Zetterling for Directing; Tribeca
