Sverre Kvamme | Villdyr (Wild Beasts) / 2017

testing love

by Douglas Messerli

 

Sverre Kvamme (screenwriter and director) Villdyr (Wild Beasts) / 2017 [10 minutes]

 

Norwegian director Sverre Kvamme begins in powerful short film with two young boys, the curly haired more dominant of the two, moving in toward the other time and again almost as if were an exercise routine, but with the sound effects of a rhythmic pumping that transforms the scene into a kind of sexual act, made ludicrous by the winter landscape and their heavy coats, but no less powerful for its impact upon the two boys. It is clear that the more innocent of the two (Mads Pettersen and Erlend Antonsen Meløy) is already desperately in love—if you can define an intense pre-pubescent desire in that manner—with his friend.

     But they are not alone in this winter playscape, as in the very next scene we observe the two boys, like pack-dogs, leading a sled topped with other children, boys and girls (Karoline Marie Røsberg Olsen, Johanne Gjertsen Larsen, Andrea Mørtsell Bjerkeseth, and Adrian Lesteberg Solberg). It is the girls, in fact, who will lure on the boys to several of their wild actions, simply to prove their childhood notions of manliness.

     In a grocer’s, the more dominant boy, Jonas, fills his friend’s backpack with stolen candy, and they run away from the store, Jonas hugged for his daring by the girls in their “gang.” One of the girls even kisses the curly-headed thief, his friend looking on in a bemused manner, but perhaps already revealing his jealousy for the freedom to act in such a manner.

     Soon after, the kids discover an abandoned house, Jonas helping in the girl, before being followed by the others. After investigating the place, checking out its seemingly “ancient” objects, its rooms, and its various drawers and cupboards, the girls first, the boys following begin to tear down the ceiling coverings and the wallpaper, before tearing apart chairs, breaking the dishes, bottles, and other kitchen ware still in their original places, and ripping apart a cupboard in which some of them were stored. There is no logic to their ransacking the place, simply the fact that they feel free to do so, releasing it appears, their pent-up frustration for all the careful attention to the very same objects they are demanded to pay at home—which might explain the girls’ particular involvement in this rampage.

     The nameless red-cheeked friend, however, wonders off into another room where he discovers a large hammer, checking it out with a few slams to a table before laying it down and sitting upon the floor in seeming thoughtfulness. His silence is interrupted by his friend running into the room with a girl on the chase.

      He immediately rises, pulling his friend away from the girl, demanding his friend lay down. The boy begrudgingly does so, frustrated by even having to give in to the weaker boy’s demands. With hammer in hand once again, he straddles the other boy’s body, putting the hammer over his friend’s head. When the one asks what he’s doing it, he responds only with a question, “Do you trust me?”

      The curly-headed kid cautiously expresses, “Yes.”

      His friend asks him to “Open wide,” Jonas opening his mouth as his buddy puts the head of the hammer slightly into it, holding it there until the friend responds, “Come on.”

      Again, the rosy-cheeked boy asks, “Do you trust me?”

      “Yes.”

      After a long pause, he asks, “Ready,” lifting the hammer over his head, the girl looking on in horror, Jonas almost pleading, “What are you gonna do?” Calling out his name, he brings down the hammer beside him, the girl suddenly pulling it out of his hand and shouting out, “What the fuck are you doing?” “Give me the hammer,” the boy demands, she responding, “Are you a complete idiot?”

     His angry answer is crucial for comprehending what all of these strange events might mean. “Why do you always have to destroy?” Jonas, standing, shakes his head as the girl walks off uncomprehendingly.  

      One might first imagine that the boy is asking her about the destruction of this derelict houses’ objects, although we also recognize she has also just destroyed the test to which he was putting Jonas, a test of trust and love. But what she truly has destroyed for the boy, I would argue, is the singular relationship he had with Jonas which we observed in the very first scene, interrupted by her and the other’s girls attempts to pull Jonas into their orbit with their expressions of normative heterosexual love.

      Jonas turns back to his friend with a look of utter exasperation, appearing to comprehend his motives but also disapproving of them.

       In the very next seen, the “gang” is seen running across a snowy field in their swimming suits, barefoot. In a cold environment such as Norway’s, it is apparently necessary to prove to oneself that one can easily endure it. I recall some of my classmates during my childhood year in that country attempting to see who might hold out the longest into winter before beginning to dress in an overcoat, perhaps to impress me as well, without quite realizing that I had grown up in just such a harsh climate.

      The girls rush ahead, taking a leap off the wharf into the fjord. Jonas is rushing ahead until his friend puts his arms around him and pulls him back, Jonas asking, “What?” as his friend replies, “You will die. …I don’t want you to die.”

       Jonas permits the hug for a few seconds longer before almost brutally pushing the red-cheeked boy away from him and thrusting him to the ground as he dives off into the cold waters.

       Our young friend stands, looks down into the deep arctic waters, and, as he momentarily recalls the warm body of his beloved friend, dives in. He has passed Jonas’ test, in his mind risking his own life for his friend.

       If these are wild beasts, they are not mindlessly marauding and plundering their space, but unknowingly playing out the most serious of mating rituals, making and testing alliances for years to come.

 

Los Angeles, May 13, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (May 2023).