Casper Andreas | Ett sista farväl (A Last Farewell) / 2013

the intolerable silence

by Douglas Messerli

 

Casper Andreas (screenwriter and director) Ett sista farväl (A Last Farewell) / 2013 [13 minutes]

Erik (Tomas von Brömssen) is an angry old man. We first see him sitting at his computer, but unable to write, irritated with the of his daughter, Malin (Liv Mjönes). She is pregnant, but he is cruelly dismissive of her, lecturing her even for asking if he has some herbal tea since she’s not supposed to drink coffee. 

    He is rude her, impatient for her to be gone.

   All of this seems difficult to explain until she reveals that she has just been to her papa’s gravesite, which Erik has evidently failed to visit.

   And gradually we begin to realize that Malin is the daughter of two gay men, one of whom, Leif (Iwar Wiklander). We also begin to perceive that his anger with Malin is that she has bought the pills Leif requested to take his own life. How could she do that to his own lover, her own papa?

    The rudeness continues until she is forced to leave. And suddenly we now realize another reason why Erik desires to be left alone. In her absence he begins a conversation with his dead companion, furious with him for having committed suicide so that he might no longer suffer from the disease which would kill him in a few months.

     Erik argues that he would have looked after him, cared for him and, despite Leif’s suggestion to the contrary, he would not have felt put upon, would have gladly nursed his husband into his grave.

    Leif continues to argue that is not Malin fault for doing what he asked. Yes, he admits, he did not end his life for Erik’s sake, but for himself, he was in pain and afraid. And the decision he made was a selfish but necessary one.

     Moreover, he counsels Erik, he cannot be angry with Malin for the rest of his life. Surely he will be delighted with the grandson, unable to resist loving the child.

     Speaking to the vision of Leif in a chair, he suddenly realizes that it is empty, and that he now lives alone even though he will always sense Leif’s presence in his life. Leif’s voice suggests he somehow go back to writing, about the two of them and Malin, that he find a way to say farewell.

     Before she has even returned home Erik calls his daughter asking if she might accompany him to the grave the next morning. The healing has begun.

     This lovely short Swedish film reveals what all gay men who have been in a long relationship must surely feel with the death of the other. In this case, Erik has a daughter they shared. If I were to survive Howard, or were Howard to survive me, the utter loneliness would be nearly unbearable, the sense of emptiness profound and debilitating just as it is for Erik. We have both willed our bodies to a research center, so there will not even be a grave to visit to symbolically say goodbye.

    At least Erik will son the voice of a crying grandson in the house and perhaps live long enough to speak to him and share with him his love of his other grandfather. Without that the silence will be nearly intolerable. I am certain I will fill the room with meaningless conversations to Howard until death silences me as well.

 

Los Angeles, March 16, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (March 2026).