Danish actor Sidse Babett Knudsen is in completely new territory here, no longer the political darling from Borgen where she radiated integrity and niceness. As prison warden Eva Hansen, she is stripped down to a grim core as she goes about her days in a rundown prison block.
Eva seems good at her job and makes an effort by asking prisoners if they slept well and doling out allotted cigarettes with a cheerful smile. We see her teaching basic maths and she sits with them in meditation class. She seems troubled but we do not know by what.
The director of this tight little psychodrama is Gustav Möller, whose mastery of dramatic tension was displayed in the low-budget 2018 hit The Guilty. In it, he managed to turn the story of a police emergency call operator (Jakob Cedergren) monitoring a distress call into an enthralling and upsetting thriller that followed the pure lines of storytelling. No wastage, nothing extra. It was so good Hollywood had a go, and messed it up by loading the operator (Jake Gyllenhaal) with a colourful backstory because they did not think a cop with a headset guiding a woman to safety was enough.
Sons was Denmark’s entry into the Berlin Film Festival and follows the same model of terse storytelling. Eva conceals her distress as a new prisoner arrives; a tall, angry young man called Mikkel (Sebastian Bull) who is taken to the high-security block.
Eva is fascinated by him and requests a transfer so she can be closer. Their interactions are laden with one-sided meaning and she secretly indulges in acts of minor persecution – withholding his cigarettes and spitting in his food.
We still don’t know her motive, although there are momentary flashbacks that hint at an incident of prison violence. Her aggression builds and she eventually lays into Mikkel with a baton before her colleagues – well-known Danish actor Dar Salim is Rami, her boss – pull her off. Now the tables turn. Mikkel quietly threatens to bring charges and she must pay off the debt.
The reasons for Eva’s anguish become known and are best left untold because Möller’s gift is to guide you inch by inch into an unknown mystery with an uncertain destination. And the revelation, when it comes, is not a resolution. After we know what happened, Eva’s feelings are even more muddied.
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Scenes of Eva supervising Mikkel on a day visit with his mother are chillingly real. She sits at the table, unable to intervene in family violence but taking it all in and understanding she is not the only one who suffers. The film could just as well have been called Mothers, as Knudsen becomes an angry knot of a woman who life has made bitter. Sitting in meditation class where she encourages the prisoners to find peace, she shrieks “Silence!” as her composure shatters.
As an unfolding story, Sons lacks the simple genius of The Guilty and becomes a more obscure psychological reckoning. The cinematographic style adds to the claustrophobia and brings a documentary feel to scenes observed through security cameras, a reminder that everything and everyone is being watched.
Eva is tired and troubled, possibly a good person who interacts positively with the other prisoners and may ultimately mean well. But we are never privy to her thoughts, only her actions, so we can never be sure. Early on she went to her supervisor’s office to explain her problem with Mikkel, then swallowed her words and walked out. It is implausible to think her secret would stay hidden within a prison system but Möller’s real interest is in the way humans behave under pressure.
Sons is screening on July 26, and August 1 and 4 as part of the Saxo Scandinavian Film Festival, which is at Palace Nova Eastend until August 17. Read about other festival highlights here.
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