Anders Helde | Drengen der ikke kunne svømme (The Boy Who Couldn't Swim) / 2011

finding a friend instead of a mother

by Douglas Messerli

 

Anders Helde (screenwriter and director) Drengen der ikke kunne svømme (The Boy Who Couldn't Swim) / 2011 [33 minutes]

 

No sooner does the cute boy from the country Rasmus (Sebastian Elkrog Sørensen) arrive in the Copenhagen train station than another boy of about his age rushes up to him handing him a small package and asking him to meet him out front 15 minutes later, while he rushes off, chased by adults. Obviously, he has stolen something and dumped it temporary on the innocent visitor. It turns out to be an ipod.

     But actually, it ends well for Rasmus as the robber Nicklas (Jonas Wandschneider) offers him a ride in the large front basket of his bicycle, cycling with him all the way the affluent suburb of Hellerup where Rasmus has the address of a woman evidently who he has discovered is his actual birth mother. But simply catching a glimpse of the well-to-do woman as she appears on her door stoop sends him running; realizing who he is in relationship to the world in which she lives, he realizes that perhaps it was not such a good idea to come to the city to meet her.

     Nicklas returns him to town where Rasmus decides to visit the zoo, eventually convincing Nicklas to join him as his guide. The two began to enjoy their day. Rasmus explains the story of his mother who had put him up adoption soon after he was born; and they share other stories, Rasmus admitting he doesn’t know his parents either, his father disappearing when he discovered his mother was pregnant and she dying when he was one year old. Niklas admits he lives in Staden with an older man, 35 or 36, but “he’s not my lover.” Staden, also named Christiana, is the so-called “freetown” of Copenhagen, an international community that was begun by squatters on a former military base.

     Nicklas now bikes his new friend off to see Staden, but on the way Rasmus suggests that they should go swimming in the bay. In Staden, Nicklas introduces him to his older roommate Carsten (Christian Damsgaard), who while Nicklas is inside tells Rasmus that his friend doesn’t know how to swim so that he will probably have to save his life a couple of times.

     Meanwhile Nicklas stops by the drug pusher (Danny Thykær) for whom he’s stolen the ipod. He jokes at seeing Rasmus, “Who’s that, your new lover?” obviously opening up even further questions about Nicklas to his new country boyfriend.

      He pays him a pittance and the two ride off. At the water, Rasmus dives in while Nicklas watches. Meanwhile, Nicklas has taken out a marijuana joint and offers it to Rasmus who has never before smoked, Nicklas telling him that it might loosen him up. At the water’s edge Rasmus also finally decides to toss the letter he has written to his mother away, even though Nicklas offers to take him back to Hellerup, perceiving that perhaps it was all a bad idea in the first place. “I don’t think she’d read it.”

      Rasmus quickly puts his hand on Nicklas’ leg and kisses him, with the other asking what he’s doing. Rasmus answers: “I don’t know. I just felt like doing it. I guess I loosened up. Was it that bad?” “No, try again,” answers Nicklas. “Why?” “It felt good.” They kiss again and once more, bringing a slight smile the normally dour Nicklas’ face.

      The time has come for Rasmus to return home, and Nicklas takes him back to station where they first met. Rasmus promises there will be a “next time.” Perhaps they’ll look for Nicklas’ father and he’ll teach him how to swim. As the train pulls away, Nicklas rushes upstairs for an overhead view of the train pulling out of the station, as the lovely score by Bo Andersen swells.

      Rasmus’ voice tells us that he didn’t write his mother a new letter or even think about her anymore. Nicklas came to visit him, “but it was different. It wasn’t like the day we met. He still couldn’t swim.”

      While Danish director Anders Helde’s short film is not profound, it presents such a simple and touching situation of two boys, both of whom clearly have felt unwanted in the world, who found one another if just for a day, and realized in those short hours a kind of deep love which helped them, surely, to survive. This is one of those films that you hope never to forget.

 

Los Angeles, September 15, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (September 2023).