In my previous report , I had written that the screening of Sole — originally scheduled for the 9.30am last Sunday — was cancelled, following which I was given a brief explanation by one of the programming advisors of Chennai International Film Festival (CIFF) over its cancellation. According to the mail sent to me, every year CIFF ships over 7-10 movies from International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK). This year, seven movies were shipped from Thiruvananthapuram. There was some confusion and delay in the delivery of Sole, which reached Chennai on Tuesday (17.12.2019), despite it being shipped on December 12. Nevertheless, I caught Sole and Queen of Hearts — both of which tread a common path.
The search for a family
In Sole , there’s a static shot of Ermanno (Claudio Segaluscio) and Lena (Sandra Drzymalska) talking to a gynaecologist about the dos and don’ts of a healthy pregnancy. Ermanno and Lena populate the frame, and the camera position seems to suggest that they are confessing to a sin, to a judge or pastor — in this case; the audience. There’s no remorse or guilt on their faces. But there’s emptiness; in their eyes, in the frames, and in the movie. This emptiness is the meat of Sole , whose central characters (Ermanno and Lena) live a shadow life.
The movie begins in a nightclub where Ermanno is alone, smoking. We soon come to know that Ermanno and Lena are not a couple. Nor are they related. They have been coerced to act as husband and wife for a few thousand Euros by Ermanno’s uncle Fabio (Bruno Buzzi), who wants to ‘buy’ Lena’s unborn child. According to Google, there’s a law that vouches against surrogacy in Italy. Could Sole imply suppression here? But we also realise that the movie is not about finding a ‘soul’mate, but about finding one’s inner soul. Take this deeply-affecting scene, for instance. Lena gives birth to a baby girl. It’s the couple’s first day with the newborn, in their apartment. The baby wails in pain and the scene cuts to a cold Lena, who doesn’t pay heed to the cries. We see a father in Ermanno who comes to the baby’s rescue and changes the diaper.
A crushing scene comes later in the movie, where Ermanno brings home a toy for the baby, to keep her engaged. Does Ermanno see a reflection of him in the child or do we see a reflection of his father in him? We know nothing about Ermanno’s father or his equation with him, except for when he says that his father used to drive around every time he used to wail as a child. The drive, he says, calmed him down. This beautifully segues into Ermanno’s present when he takes Lena and the baby for a drive. Sole is as much about Ermanno as it is about Lena. She is Polish who’s a refugee in Italy. What kind of a woman sells her own baby, wonders Ermanno’s friend. But we understand her desperation for money. We sympathise with her when she calls her baby “ugly” — indicative of Lena’s upbringing? Could she also be an illegitimate child? Director Carlo Sironi toys with the idea of teenage pregnancy, and the ideals of a happy family.
Ermanno gets a ‘father’ moment when he offers to take the baby and Lena into his arms, and nurture a family — something his father couldn’t afford (he jumped to his death from a window) and something he’s been yearning. The structure of Sole reminded me of Abbas Kirostami’s Certified Copy , another existential drama where two strangers meet on a bright day and soon, they tend to behave as if they have been married for years. Given the absence of his father, are we witnessing what Ermanno had been missing all his life? Perhaps. But what’s certain is, there's a sadness; in his eyes, the way he talks and carries around himself. That sadness is all around us.
Queen of Hearts and emotional abuse
In more than one way, Ermanno from Sole and Gustav (Gustav Lindh) from Queen of Hearts can be seen as mirror images. Both characters have a sense of loneliness and a lack of fatherhood. But where these two movies differ lies in its treatment. Queen of Hearts opens with a rather peculiar shot of the camera turning upside down, thereby establishing its chief protagonist Anne (Trine Dyrholm), who takes a quiet stroll in the midst of a forest — the shot almost implies as if her life’s about to turn upside down, which does happen. Anne is an attorney who takes up cases of girls who have been sexually abused/assaulted. She’s happily married to her doctor-husband Peter (Magnus Krepper), who seems much younger to her. They have twin daughters. All is well in the family until Peter’s son (Gustav) from previous marriage enters their life. Gustav doesn’t get along. Neither with Anne, nor with his dad. And he’s cocky around them, but not with the girls. Anne despises Gustav at first. But she puts up with him for the simple reason that he’s underage. A few scenes later, we see them bond over. Gustav sees a ‘mother’ in Anne — at least that’s how I read the signs, initially. He brings home a girl (Amanda) and introduces her to his stepmother. Anne asks whether she’s his girlfriend to a visibly awkward Gustav. But soon, we get to see the other side of Anne, who develops feelings for her stepson. What starts off as an innocent love story between a boy and a woman goes into a dark zone, when their relationship turns into incestuous. What’s remarkable about Queen of Hearts , despite taking a sensitive topic, is the way the director May el-Toukhy handles sexual tension.
There’s a certain amount of dignity with which she shoots the scenes where Anne and Gustav get physical. May el-Toukhy conveys the emotional side of Anne by using trees as a metaphor. For instance, on the night when Anne overhears her stepson having sexual intercourse with Amanda, there’s an establishing shot of a leafless tree — possibly to show how mundane her life has become. A few scenes later, we see a beautiful shot of lush trees, perhaps to show how fulfilled Anne is — this comes right after she gets intimate with her stepson. When their secret affair hits a new low, the director cuts to a slightly brown-ish tree, in the month of autumn? These are the artistic merits of Queen of Hearts , which, again veers off its course, to become a movie about sexual abuse. Gustav is made a victim here, and the last half-hour is chilling. There have been enough movies on sexual abuse. But perhaps for the first time, we get inside the victim’s head to see the extent of trauma he goes through. Of course, in such cases, the emotional abuse is more than sexual, right?
