Two married couples who meet on vacation in Italy hit it off and, a bit later, the Danes and their daughter decide to accept an invitation to visit the Dutch and their son in the remote countryside of southern Holland. It might have sounded like a good idea at the time, but the opening shots of car headlights piercing the gloom of a dirt road, while 1950s scary music squeaks its unmistakable warning, should cue audiences in on what Speak No Evil (Gaesterne) is up to. Premiering in the Midnight section of Sundance, Christian Tafdrup’s third feature is a sophisticated work of psychological horror that explores the social conventions and expectations that keep the victims in the story glued to the dark side of the street, even after all signs point to the exit.
A Danish actor turned writer-director, Tafdrup has explored the insidious pitfalls of relationships before in his part-fantasy Parents and A Horrible Woman. Here, however, the focus of the screenplay, written with his brother Mads Tafdrup, veers away from love and romance towards interpersonal psychology and the way people like the good-hearted, socially correct hero Bjorn (Morten Burian) live their lives under the compulsion of being pleasant and not offending the boring people they have to invite over for dinner. This may sound like a very Scandinavian sort of angst but it should strike at least a small echoing chord in most viewers, giving this well-made and well-acted tale believability and some commercial momentum.
The set-up brings to mind the Ian McEwan/Paul Schrader tale of lethal couples in The Comfort of Strangers, here minus the sex, plus the children. As the story shifts from social ritual to shocking horror, the latter are the target of the greatest atrocities. To what end? Why is all this nasty stuff happening, demands the anguished Bjorn? Comes the cold answer: because you let it happen. And that’s all the explanation we get.
Bjorn and his wife Louise (Sidsel Siem Koch) are vacationing in the hill country of Tuscany with their young daughter Agnes (Liva Forsberg) when they meet a cool and amusing Dutch pair, Patrick (Fedja van Huet) and Karin (Karina Smulders), in their hotel. The Dutch have a young son, Abel (Marius Damslev), who they explain was born without a tongue but is a lovely boy anyway. He seems to have something urgent to communicate to Bjorn but is unable to do so.
Back home, the Danes receive a postcard urging them to pay their new friends a visit. Louise, who has a little more sense of self-preservation than her husband, is undecided, but they “don’t want to be impolite” and are soon off in their car on an eight-hour drive to the Netherlands.
We are reminded that all is not well and as it should be by Sune Kølste’s witty score which references the most ominous of horror scenarios and Erik Molberg Hansen’s disturbing and exceedingly dark cinematography, not to mention the fact the house is so tucked away in a deep forest that not even Hansel and Gretel could find it. The harmony and bonding the couples experienced on holiday have vanished and the Danish family feels awkward and uncomfortable, especially when they witness the violent treatment Patrick metes out to poor little Abel. When Louise discovers her daughter Agnes asleep in bed with Patrick and Karin, who are both naked, the jig is up. She packs up the family and they sneak out in the middle of the night. With Bjorn behind the wheel following her lead, the car is already racing down the road to safety, when Agnes discovers her beloved plush bunny has been left behind in the house.
So far, so many winking backward looks at horror protocol. One almost expects the story to take a turn towards comedy, which seems lurking just under the surface of van Huet’s hypocritical smile as he meets Burian’s moist, troubled eyes. Maybe there is even a flicker of attraction between them in a surreal scene where Patrick takes Bjorn to a deep sand quarry to release his frustrations by screaming. (A location destined to return.) But all smiles fade in the terrifying shocker of a climax, where Burian and Siem Koch are riveting as pure ritualistic victims of violence they are oddly powerless to oppose, as though their in-bred good manners kept them from hitting back.
D.P. Molberg Hansen’s classic final shots leave a deep impression, along with his aerial shot of a ribbon of dark highway winding through the forest which feels like a hat tip to Kubrick’s The Shining, as does an attic full of old photos that reveal a sinister mystery.
Director: Christian Tafdrup
Screenplay: Christian Tafdrup, Mads Tafdrup
Cast: Morten Burian, Sidsel Siem Koch, Fedja van Huêt, Karina Smulders, Liva Forsberg, Marius Damslev, Hichem Yacoubi
Producer: Jacob Jarek
Executive producer: Ditte Milsted
Co-producer: Trent
Cinematography: Erik Molberg Hansen
Production design: Sabine Hviid
Costume design: Louize Nissen
Editing: Nicolaj Monberg
Music: Sune “Køter” Kølste
Sound: Marco Vermaas
Production companies: Profile Pictures (Denmark) in association with Oak Motion Pictures (Netherland)
World sales: See-Through Films
Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Midnight)
In Danish, Dutch, English
97 minutes
