Iver Jensen | We Remember Moments / 2015

comeuppance

by Douglas Messerli

 

Iver Jensen (screenwriter and director) We Remember Moments / 2015 [12 minutes]

 

Bullying of gay or simply “different” individuals in the high school world apparently takes place in nearly every culture. In the Iceland high school which Pétur (Fannar Már Jóhannsson) attends, the school bully is Dagur (Haukur Örn Valtysson) who daily tortures him over the seemingly slightest of reasons, gay sexuality not necessarily being one of them. Mostly, it appears, since his mother has died and his father is working at what might be day jobs—Dagur describes him as a “hobo”—he mocks him for his poverty and social standing, questioning that Pétur seems interested in photography, for example, when he cannot even afford a camera.

    In the very next scene, it happens to be Pétur’s birthday as we meet the obviously caring father (Jón Páll Eyjólfsson) who has baked him a birthday cake, “just as his mother used to.” Yet the son remains sullen, obviously not yet having assimilated his mother’s death. But the father truly surprises him with another gift, a second-hand fully equipped Cannon camera, which finally brings words of joy and appreciation to the son’s mouth.

      Now in the rough mountain range of the Iceland landscape we observe Pétur snapping scenery. That is, until two young boys suddenly appear along the path, boys who just happen to be from the photographer’s high school, Dagur and another boy Helgi (Mateusz Swierczewski). Pétur, with camera to his eye, overhears their argument about their relationship, in which Helgi is tired of being hidden behind the barrage of Dagur’s homophobic comments in the school, backed up by the others. He wants a more open relationship, a near impossibility of course, while Dagur begs him to wait just a little longer until they’ve graduated.

      Pétur snaps an attempted kiss between the two, as Hegli pulls away in anger and walks off, Dagur calling out for him and following.

       The next morning, having made copies of the photo, Pétur posts the photo throughout the high school halls, and by the time Dagur arrives at school most of the student body are gossiping about him being gay. He too is now ostracized as Pétur as so long been.

        Sitting alone outside the school, Dagur looks miserable as Pétur joins him, trying to actually begin a conversation perhaps for the first time of their lives. And later, as Pétur is walking home Dagur joins him, perhaps too predictably apologizing for all the terrible things he has done to hurt him.

        Up to this point, Iver Jensen’s short film We Remember Moments has seemed, uncomfortably, to have represented itself only as a revenge film, a work in which at this point it is difficult to feel full empathy for either boy. But in this moment, Pétur responds that he has something to tell him as the screen goes black, the credits rolling soon after.

        Clearly, he is about to admit what he has done. Unfortunately, it is too late for the film to explore what might have happened had that scene been shown and the aftermath revealed. Had Jensen’s film had the nerve to chart out that territory it might have stood out as a far more potent film than one that simply gets back at the bully forcing him to feel the pain that he has long caused.

     But as it stands, Pétur has himself become a bully. And despite the educative apology that we might expect in any short film devoted to showing how bullying is wrong, it appears none of the other students are more willing to accept gay or outsider behavior any more than Dagur was. If the only movie had moved into that territory instead of timidly standing on the outside looking on. As it stands all we have is a picture of young boy who has gotten his comeuppance, never a very interesting event in fiction or in film. George Amberson Minafer’s final comeuppance was so uninteresting to Orson Welles as director of The Magnificent Ambersons, that we walked off the set while others reshot the scene, creating a terribly flawed ending to a work that had otherwise been an example of great filmmaking.

 

Los Angeles, August 19, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (August 2022).