Jannik Splidsboel | Between Here and Now / 2018

four days of copenhagen

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jannik Splidsboel (screenwriter and director) Between Here and Now / 2018 [22 minutes]

 

A young Italian man Tony (Francesco Martino) has been sent to Copenhagen on some dirty business. We never discover what precisely he has been asked to do, but from the look of his Danish contacts and the murder that has taken place just before his arrival at an industrial location, it obviously has something to do with the mafia or camorra and perhaps drugs.

     On his first night Tony also meets Oscar (Peder Bille) at Copenhagen bar and briefly goes home with him to Oscar’s nearly empty apartment since he has just moved in and is still determining how to decorate it. He shares a few sips of whiskey and leaves early, before the two men really get to know one another, or before the film even establishes that they are gay, although we presume given the circumstances that they are.

  

    Tony clearly doesn’t like his contact (Peter Oliver Hansen), the waiting, nor the job he’s been asked to do. He revisits Oscar’s apartment, discovering that he has been painting a single swath for over a week; laughing he settles in to help, the two soon witnessed on the couch as Tony attempts to correct Oscar’s poor Italian accent. They drink, smoke weed, and talk, Oscar admitting he was already almost stoned before Tony’s arrival and is now ready to fall asleep any moment. To Tony’s question about whether he might fear that the stranger will suddenly steal all of his money and paintings (there are none, of course), Oscar replies no, he hoping for it, so that he might feel like a victim. They quickly develop a rapport, and in the next frame, it is Tony who is already asleep on the couch with Oscar still smoking.

       The next day, after his contact takes him to the meeting up place where he discovers two bodies, sends him on the run. Dare he even go back to his hotel, since his contact might surely admit to having taken him to the spot where the murder has occurred. Was he set up? Danish director Jannik Splidsboel isn’t really interested in these issues.

       When Oscar returns home, he finds Tony sitting on the steps waiting for him. Oscar feeds him, and finally asks, “Do you want to talk about what happened?” a question to which he receives no answer. The camera catches them in the kitchen after, Tony washing the dishes, and Oscar drying.

       The following day Oscar takes Tony to one of his favorite places in Copenhagen, a cemetery. Don’t laugh, in Europe I often enjoy visiting cemeteries as well, and have seen nearly all the burial places of Paris.

     They do finally return to Tony’s hotel and cavort in the pool, after returning to Tony’s room where, for the first time in the film, they finally make love, perhaps the first truly relaxing and enjoyable moment of Tony’s visit to the Danish capitol. We sense his pent-up emotions in the intensity of his fuck.

       Like so very many gay films, it is a “love’em-and-live‘em” scenario. When Oscar awakes, Tony has already left, presumably returning home to Italy. Evidently, so that he doesn’t have to face the desk clerk on his way, Oscar takes the long walk down the back hotel staircase as the credits come into view.

 

Los Angeles, July 2, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2023).