Opening with a chillingly banal depiction of incestuous paedophile abuse before touching on obliterating depression, drug addiction, serial infidelity, postcolonial trauma, suicide, murder, and a grisly animal attack on a young girl, Kalak is a compellingly grim slab of classic Nordic glumcore, but admittedly not a great date movie. Building on her prize-winning debut feature Holiday (2018), Swedish writer-director Isabella Eklöf again takes a nuanced look at sexual assault and its aftershocks here. This difference this time is that she is adapting somebody else’s work, the 2007 autobiographical novel by Danish-Norwegian author Kim Leine, who shares screenplay credit.
World premiering in competition in San Sebastian this week, Kalak is a handsomely crafted co-production between Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Greenland and the Netherlands. The story’s unsparing bleakness will doubtless limit its potential audience appeal, but high-calibre performances, thoughtful treatment of serious themes, and visually stunning Greenlandic locations are all strong selling points. There are moments of levity and beauty in the darkness here, elevating Eklöf’s emotionally charged psycho-drama above the usual glut of misery porn that typically score festival slots before disappearing into art-house obscurity. Leine’s fame and acclaim in Scandinavia could also help boost the film’s regional prospects.
Kalak mostly takes place in the former Danish colony of Greenland at the dawn of the 21st century. Jan (Emil Johnsen) is a nurse on the run from his painful childhood in Denmark, notably his sexually abusive father Ole (Soren Hellerup). Outwardly, he appears to have made a success of his adult life, sharing a warm family nest with his supportive wife Lærke (Asta Kamma August) and two pre-teen children. But his damaged, needy nature keeps drawing him into high-risk situations, working through his past trauma on some level through a series of messy sexual entanglements with Greenlandic women, which Lærke initially tolerates with infinite good grace.
Immersing himself in the local language and customs, Jan dreams of becoming a “Kalak”, a slang term for “real” or “dirty” Greenlander, which can be both insult and compliment. With the decades-deep resentment common to most colonised peoples, the natives treat his dubiously flattering interest with a mix of pity, contempt and ritual deference. In reality, deep down, Jan is craving a sense of belonging, a healing human connection, an escape route from solitude and self-loathing. In a bitter wake-up call, the long-suffering Greenlandic women he pursues share his crushing loneliness and, in many cases, similar back stories of sexual violence too. Indeed, by comparison to sharp-clawed single mother Karine (Berda Larsen) and fragile lost soul Ella (Connie Kristoffersen), his First World problems start to look pretty minor.
When Jan’s sexual misadventures fail to cure his incurable sickness, he turns to self-medicating with drugs stolen from his hospital workplace. After a series of horrific accidents leave him alone in Greenland, he spirals into an addiction that almost kills him. But just as all-consuming tragedy seems inevitable, Kalak takes a more cautiously hopeful turn. A final reckoning between Jan and his dying father is a horribly authentic matter-of-fact portrait of a cheerfully unrepentant paedophile, still proudly insisting he shared mutually loving relationships with his victims, and dismissing anyone who observes common laws of consent as dreary prisoners of convention. When Jan eventually achieves a kind of closure with the monster who destroyed his life, it feels like both a noble act of kindness and a quietly ruthless act of revenge. Not quite victory, not quite redemption, but release at last from endlessly restaging his childhood nightmares.
While Kalak obviously does not offer feel-good entertainment, it is a compelling and handsome drama with serious points to make about trauma and recovery. Crucially, despite its gruelling themes, this close-up character study of a deeply dysfunctional anti-hero never becomes too earnest or sombre. Jan’s amoral antics are presented in an impressively non-judgemental and non-sensational manner, leavened by moments of dark humour and lively musical interludes, with Nadim Carlson’s majestic wide shots of the ruggedly beautiful Greenlandic landscapes a stand-out feature.
Johnsen’s layered performance, perpetually holding back tears behind a rueful smile and hunched body language, is a virtuosic lesson in conveying inner spiritual defeat with minimal words. Great work by his female co-stars ensure that Kalak is bigger than just one man’s emotional journey, and a sobering reminder that victims sometimes behave like abusers too.
Director: Isabella Eklöf
Screenwriters: Isabella Eklöf, Sissel Dalsgaard Thomsen, Kim Leine
Cast: Emil Johnsen, Asta Kamma August, Berda Larsen, Aviana Heuser, Soren Hellerup, Klemens Christensen, Maka Abelsen, Malik Berglund Davidsen,
Cinematography: Nadim Carlsen
Editing: Anna Eborn, Isabella Eklöf
Producers: Maria Ekerhovd, David Herdies, Kristina Börjeson, Ilona Tolmunen, Erik Glijnis, Emile Hertling Péronard
Production companies: Manna Film (Denmark), Mer Film (Norway), Momento Film (Sweden), Film I Vast (Sweden), Made (Finland), Lemming Film (Netherlands), Polarama (Greenland)
World sales: Totem Films (France)
Venue: San Sebastian International Film Festival (Official Selection)
In Danish, Greenlandic, English, Kalaallisut
125 minutes
