Marco Sandeman | Delta / 2014

imprisonment

by Douglas Messerli

 

Marco Sandeman (screenwriter and director) Delta / 2014 [10 minutes]

 

At the very beginning of Danish director Marco Sandeman’s short film Delta, we watch Julie (Rosalinde Mynster) returning home to the isolated house where father Nicolas (Peder Holm Johansen) now lives with his young male lover, Christian (Mads Reuther). Her father’s sudden announcement of his homosexuality obviously is what has led to her parents’ divorce and the decampment of Julie, her sister, and mother to England, where they now live.

    Even as she approaches the house, we see the young Christian go storming off like a son having just a row with his father.

     Nicolas is absolutely delighted, he claims, with Julie’s visit and when Christian returns, apologetic, he quickly brings out the champagne so that they can celebrate and his daughter might have a chance to meet his new young lover, whom we discover he has met through an escort service or Grindr.

     But Christian quickly takes over the conversation, particularly as Nicolas scurries around attempting to gather up some celebratory dinner provisions. And it soon becomes apparent that despite Nicolas’ insistence that he has never been happier and that he and Christian get along wonderfully (despite the occasional argument, he admits), that the young man feels terribly isolated in the Delta home. Apparently, Nicolas will not give him enough money that he might even buy a ticket to return to Copenhagen for a visit. Or, for that matter, even to purchase a pack of cigarettes. And gradually it becomes obvious that Nicolas is terrified of losing the unhappy young man, and, in a sense, has imprisoned him in their relationship.

     Julie has apparently returned home to share some news with her father, one source describes it as a personal incident (we suspect it might have been a rape), but she is never able to share that information given that her father is himself so caught up in an emotional stew over possibly being abandoned by his beautiful young lover.

      We can only guess that this kind of self-centeredness was behind his being previously unable to share the fact with Julie’s mother and his family that he was, in fact, a gay man, himself imprisoned in a marriage. Although he professes his love of his daughter, his thoughts are all about himself and his young lover, even after she explains that she has something important to tell him.

      This small piece shows us in 10 short minutes almost everything we need to know about how Nicolas goes about destroying the lives of those around him, seeking love only for his own needs.

 

Los Angeles, March 10, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (March 2025).