Søren Green | En Nat (A Night) / 2020

fear without regrets

by Douglas Messerli

 

Søren Green and Tomas Lagermand Lundme (screenplay), Søren Green (director) En Nat (A Night) / 2020 [7 minutes]

 

In the third of what we can now guess as a trilogy, writers Green and Lundme reveal that in my analysis above, I was both wrong and right. There apparently was no flashback, no already resolved situation. Rather Frederik (Jacob Ottensten), just as I suggested, wasn’t quite ready for the gay sex we saw played out in their love scene, and certainly not ready to be identified as a “couple.”

      This 7-minute film is played entirely in text messages sent back and forth between the two boys in the dark of their own bedrooms.

      Mathias (Ulrik Windfeldt-Schmidt) cannot comprehend exactly what has happened, and is even more disconcerted with Frederik at first won’t even answer his messages.

      Finally Frederik, seeing how much in pain his former friend is, begins to communicate, explaining that it was the sex which has troubled him. Perhaps, he suggests, that he sees Mathias more than a friend instead of a lover.

      After all, he adds, this was his first time having sex. To which Mathias replies that it was also his first time.

      Just before watching this film, I had seen Josh Cox’s film of 4 years later, that contained basically the same scene. In this case it is Mathias evidently who asks, “Do you regret it?” Frederik answering “No.” But Green’s work goes just a bit further, with Mathias and Frederik agreeing that

at least they are happy that their first sexual experience was with one another.

      That may not fully answer Frederik’s fears about his sexuality in general and his apparent questioning of whether he wants to proceed in a gay relationship, but at least he admits that his tender partner was perhaps the best person to help him through the experience.

       We have no idea whether or not the two boys will find a way to fully come out or to accept one another as their lovers, but they at least can sleep on the fact that there is no deep hate between them, only fears.

       It will be interesting to see if Green decides to push beyond this triptych glimmer of young boy love into a clearer resolve of their feelings. It appears, however, that he feels most comfortable as a kind of sketch artist—given what we see also in his 2018 film, October Boy—in exploring the feelings of adolescents still in transition than following them into the decisions they make as young adults.

 

Los Angeles, October 30, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (October 2024).