How does one deal with impending, inevitable grief? That’s the question at the center of Sylvia Le Fanu’s debut feature My Eternal Summer, first screened in San Sebastián’s New Directors section. With TrustNordisk shopping it to international markets, it should prove a viable acquisition in territories with an appetite for Scandinavian cinema and female-oriented arthouse films.
At its core, this is the story of two people, a mother and daughter. The latter, Fanny, is fifteen years old and would love nothing more than to have fun during the summer. That idea may not exactly match what her parents have planned, with the same old vacation house and the same old daily routine: reading, swimming, walking. But there is an unspoken world of pain beneath that collection of old habits: Fanny’s mother Karin, who has been ill for quite some time, will not make it past the end of the season.
She has therefore asked her husband and daughter to spend those final moments with her, in a familiar and comfortable setting. And while Fanny has agreed to it, there’s some resentment bubbling underneath as it’s understood the seemingly customary vacation is really just an antechamber of death. And since they’re both afraid to have an honest conversation about the ordeal, the summer is at risk of becoming more painful than it already is for all parties involved.
Based on the director’s own experience, the film juxtaposes warm summer colors and lighting with an underlying sense of gloom. Every shot invokes a feeling of seasonal cheerfulness, the cinematography being sometimes reminiscent of the breeziness of Eric Rohmer’s summertime films, as an ideal embodiment of the youthful energy Fanny is holding back as she thinks she’s being denied her chance at happiness (then again, at her age, she’d probably think that even if her mother wasn’t terminally ill).
The contrast between sunny exterior and sad interior is best embodied in the central performance by16-year old Kaya Toft Loholt, who builds on her previous work in 2020’s A Perfectly Normal Family (where she was the young daughter of a parent who announces their transgender identity) to craft a compelling portrait of a teenager trying to come to terms with a new status quo and struggling to accept it.
Largely bedridden, Karin is nevertheless a dynamic presence thanks to Maria Rossing, who injects pained compassion into every broken line delivery and tentative gesture, all of which could be the character’s last. Caught in between the two, Swedish-born actor Anders Mossling serves as the mediator playing the father Johan, a man trying to make sense of the upcoming loss and how it will affect an already volatile relationship with his daughter.
Other people pop by for fleeting visits, but this is largely about the three family members, their eternal summer serving as the backdrop for a delicately sorrowful tale of the stages of grief, told with delicate sincerity by a filmmaker with a penchant for understated emotional honesty. And while summer’s lease hath all too short a date, as the Bard would say, the seasonal change will eventually be a welcome one as we reach the moment of acceptance. And as one season ends, many more are on the horizon for Le Fanu after this confident, solidly delicate debut.
Director: Sylvia Le Fanu
Screenwriters: Sylvia Le Fanu, Mads Lind Knudsen
Cast: Kaya Toft Loholt, Maria Rossing, Anders Mossling
Producer: Jeppe Wowk
Cinematography: Jan Bastian Muñoz Marthinsen
Production design: Camilla Silvana Navarro Howalt
Music: Patricio Fraile
Sound: Frederik Lehmann Mikkelsen
Production company: Adomeit Film
World sales: TrustNordisk
Venue: San Sebastián International Film Festival (New Directors)
In Danish, English, German, Norwegian
105 minutes
