A troubled young man consents to being held virtual prisoner and subjected to daily interrogation about his missing girlfriend in Danish director Martin Skovbjerg’s stylish second feature Copenhagen Does Not Exist. Adapted from Terje Larsen’s 1998 novel Sander, this cryptic psychological thriller borrows the moody, fatalistic grammar of Scandinavian crime drama as it seeks to solve what initially looks like a murder mystery with no body. But it ultimately delivers a more universal meditation on love and loss, grief and guilt, truth and lies, all told in hazy flashbacks by unreliable narrators.
World premiering in Rotterdam film festival this week, Copenhagen Does Not Exist is a classy and compelling work, even if it sometimes feels a little too pompously glum and over-styled. Sumptuous visuals, genre-friendly suspense elements and the healthy global fanbase for Nordic Noir thrillers should all boost theatrical prospects. For Scandi screen buffs, other draws include the welcome presence of Danish screen icon Zlatko Buric (Pusher, Triangle of Sadness) and a lyrical screenplay by Norwegian Eskil Vogt, who was Oscar-nominated for co-scripting Joachim Trier’s much-loved The Worst Person in the World (2021). Vogt is also a writer-director in his own right, earning warm reviews for his excellent supernatural thriller The Innocents (2021).
The narrative chronology of Copenhagen Does Not Exist is purposely jumbled, repeatedly rewinding to its starting point: a chance meeting in a Copenhagen bookshop between two wounded souls. Angela Bundalovic (currently starring in Nicolas Winding Refn’s bloody Netflix series Copenhagen Cowboy) plays saucer-eyed, dimple-cheeked beauty Ida, her deep psychological scars just discernible behind her dancer’s poise and enigmatic Mona Lisa smile. Sander (Jonas Holst Schmidt) is young, handsome, intense and emotionally raw from a recent bereavement. Their awkward flirtation soon blossoms into the kind of sexually charged, all-consuming obsession that only really happens in films. Viewers knows this, of course, but we go along for the ride, urging these star-crossed lovers onwards into ever more stormy waters.
As aspiring writer with no apparent ties, Sander moves into Ida’s apartment and takes root there. His first awkward encounter with Ida’s overbearing father Porath (Buric) and brother Viktor (Vilmer Trier Brøgger) is charged with doomy portent. “It’s good somebody is keeping an eye on her,” Viktor says ominously. But as the relationship deepens, the pair become virtual recluses, gradually severing all ties with family and friends. It seems Ida is seeking a dramatic escape from painful past traumas, and believes he has finally found a suitable accomplice. “What we have is greater than love,” she tells Sander. And then she vanishes.
After Ida disappears, a devastated Sander agrees to be interrogated on video by an increasingly menacing Porath, who clearly believes the young man is hiding something suspicious, maybe even her murder. The secret that explains Ida’s vanishing is important to unlocking Copenhagen Does Not Exist, but never over-explained, and not the defining narrative twist it might have been in a more generic suspense thriller. Vogt and Skovbjerg are equally concerned with the ripple effect of her loss on friends and family: the horror of uncertainty, the need for closure, the very human urge to tell ourselves comforting lies instead of painful truths. Especially for Porath, whose relationship with his daughter was obviously complicated. “He just needs to hear she’s all right,” Viktor pleads with Sander, “it doesn’t have to be true.”
With its dreamy loops, time-jumbling rhythms and Scandi-licious visuals, Copenhagen Does Not Exist is a self-consciously stylish work. This is mostly an asset but occasionally borders on annoying when Skovbjerg strains too hard for enigmatic effect, pushing his deconstructed plotlines and poetically opaque dialogue to Terrence Malick levels, which do little to illuminate the elusive main characters and their fuzzy psychological motives. That said, the story still packs a strong emotional punch while Jacob Møller’s camerawork is immersive, sensual and inventive. In one set-piece sequence, an imaginary car accident happens in silence and partially off screen, the lethal made lyrical. A mournful electro-orchestral score by Danish collective Av Av Av bolsters the film’s defining mood of haunted, haunting, melancholy beauty.
Director: Martin Skovbjerg
Cast: Jonas Holst Schmidt, Angela Bundalovic, Zlatko Buric, Vilmer Trier Brøgger
Screenwriter: Eskil Vogt, based on the novel ‘Sander’ by Terje Larsen
Cinematography: Jacob Møller
Editing: Michael Aaglund, Jenna Hall Mangulad, Olivier Bugge Coutté
Production design: Silje Aune Dammen
Music: Av Av Av
Producers: Eva Jakobsen, Katrin Pors, Mikkel Jersin
Production company: Snowglobe (Denmark)
World Sales: Trust Nordisk
Venue: International Film Festival Rotterdam (Big Screen Competition)
In Danish, Serbian, Swedish
98 minutes
