There’s something about Tea Lindeburg’s exquisitely shot and intriguingly conceived As in Heaven (Du som er i himlen) that flashes back to Ermanno Olmi and the Italian director’s Catholic classic The Tree of Wooden Clogs. In themselves, these rural stories set in the 19th century have little in common – Olmi recreates the harsh life of tenant farmers living in a community with documentary force, while the Danish Lindeburg prefers a soft palette to juxtapose modern belief in a woman’s right to expand her mind and horizons, clashing against a reality underpinned and often dictated by the farmers’ rock hard religious faith. The beauty of As in Heaven is that it lets us view a young girl’s dilemma from both sides and from both centuries. And as in Olmi’s film, it is God’s will that prevails and only through its acceptance can life flow on harmoniously, surrounded by nature and the seasons, the grain harvests and children growing up.
Sure-footed in directing this original first feature, Lindeburg took home the best director award at San Sebastian. In a clever opening sequence which begins as a sentimental frolic and ends in horror (Lindeburg is the creator of the supernatural Netflix series Equinox), she introduces a visionary undercurrent in the character of the 14-year-old Lise, the firstborn of the owners of Broholm, a sprawling and prosperous farm in the lush Danish countryside. Flora Ofelia Hofmann Lindahl depicts Lise as a creature caught mid-transformation, a girl on the cusp of becoming a woman, a barefoot blonde who radiates innocence and blind faith in the future. We meet her roaming the fields of tall wheat, as carefree and self-confident as the insects buzzing around her, and she is eagerly looking forward to leaving the farm and going away to school. She’ll be the first female in the family to take this momentous step, and it’s her mother Anna (Ida Cæcilie Rasmussen) who backs her up against her disparaging father.
Then, with the camera close on the humming girl bursting with her own life and thoughts, she looks up and find the sky has turned an apocalyptic shade of red. And drops of blood are falling on her face. Cut to Lise safely sleeping in her bed, in a room dappled with sunlight. Was it only a dream, then? It hardly matters, because as her steely granny Sine (Kirsten Olesen) remarks, dreams are things that cannot be taken lightly.
Despite Sine’s firm belief in the veracity of dreams, she is also the most religious member of a very Christian household. The not-so-subtle hints include a crucifix over Lise’s bed, a poster-sized painting of the Our Father prayer, and a Bible in a drawer by her mother’s bed. “God has great plans for you,” Anna tells her daughter with joy in her eyes. But she herself, who is expecting what appears to be her eighth child, also has a sinister dream, one in which she falls sick and dies when the doctor is called.
Granny Sine gives such credence to this dream that when Anna goes into excruciatingly painful labor and the midwife warns them the delivery is going to be life-threatening, Anna and Sine refuse to let the doctor be called, fearing it will spell her end. The more sensible women in the house plead with them to be reasonable, but Sine is unmovable: God will save Anna if he so deigns. (We are considerably more disposed towards Sine when we learn that six of her ten children died young.) As the climax approaches, the theological question of God’s role in human suffering and the need to accept his will come into strong focus, just as they do at the end of The Tree of Wooden Clogs.
Although Lindeburg’s screenplay was inspired by Marie Bregendahl’s 1912 novel A Night of Death, there is nothing that feels outdated about the psychology of the characters. Perhaps because young Hofmann Lindahl, who has already won a best actress award for her work on the Danish TV series Cry Wolf, projects a very contemporary mix of emotions and intelligence, and her longing for the freedom she sees in the adult world seems perfectly natural. In one startling scene, she and her cousins discuss the forbidden things they could do if their mother died. But the next moment Lise repents of these fantasies, which at that point in the story risk coming true. Anna’s difficult labor is terrifying to watch and hear, especially for Lise who sneaks back from granny’s house to find out what is happening. Though the outcome is uncertain until the final scenes, it’s clear that the world of childhood is behind her now.
Giving the film its strong emotional charge is the way Lindeburg shoots everything from Lise’s POV, sometimes in a naively literal way as her eyes roam over the room, sometimes by taking a scene like her innocent fight in the hay with good-looking farmhand Jens Peter (Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt) and interiorizing it entirely within Lise’s girlish psyche. When their tumble (which on another level is not all that innocent) is interrupted by an adult, the camera remains on Lise and inside her contagious laughter. Shooting on film and digital, D.P. Marcel Zyskind’s carefully modulated play of light and shadow brings a great aesthetic sensibility to the story, while the clean lines of Jesper Clausen’s period sets emphasize the idyllic look of rural life.
Director, screenplay: Tea Lindeburg
Cast: Flora Ofelia Hofmann Lindahl, Lisbeth Dahl, Thure Lindhardt, Ida Cæcilie Rasmussen, Stine Fischer Christensen, Kirsten Olesen, Palma Lindeburg Leth, Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt
Producers: Lise Orheim Stender, Jesper Morthorst
Executive producers: Jesper Morthorst, Christian Torpe, Tea Lindeburg, Marcel Zyskind, Malte Udsen
Cinematography: Marcel Zyskind
Production design: Jesper Clausen
Costume design: Nina Gronlund
Editing: Asa Mossberg
Music: Kristian Leth
Sound: Peter Albrechtsen
Production companies: MOTOR (Denmark)
World sales: LevelK
Venue: San Sebastian Film Festival (competition)
In Danish
86 minutes
