Broken Hill Blues

While plot isn’t necessarily the most important thing in a film (sometimes it barely matters at all) the utter lack of anything for us to grab onto in Sofia Norlin’s “Broken Hill Blues” makes it more of an endurance test than a motion picture. Set in a remote Swedish mining village, the film follows the depressed town teenagers as they go around trying to figure out the meaning of their humdrum lives. Among these teens are sensitive photographer Zorin (Lina Leandersson of Let the Right One In fame), rebel boy Markus (Sebastian Hiort af Ornas) and Daniel (Alfred Juntti) who at one point picks up a rifle and heads by himself into the mountains.

The ominous mine sets a menacing tone that the film itself never justifies. Is Norlin suggesting that industrialization killed quaint little towns? Is she offering these rebellious teenagers as sacrifice to the all-consuming gods of capitalism? Do these young people have any purpose besides being archetypes? “Broken Hill Blues” is mostly rescued by Petrus Sjovik’s breathtaking digital cinematography, which helps distract us from its confused personality.

Something Must Break

“You’re so beautiful I want to vomit” exclaims Andreas (Iggy Malmborg) to Sebastian (Saga Becker) with a devastated look on his face. He has just explained to Sebastian that, despite having spent the night with him, he is not gay, to which the other replies “me neither”. The hero in Ester Martin Bergsmark’s “Something Must Break” lives in a post-gender universe where he doesn’t feel that labels are needed, because he lives his life how he best sees fit. Wearing a lush ponytail, makeup and a pearl necklace, he seems not to be affected by the way people look at him. Then, one day he is rescued from a bashing by the mysterious, handsome Andreas, who he pursues convinced he has finally found “the one”.

But as Andreas deals with his issues, Sebastian is focused on leaving his current self behind and turning into a new being called “Ellie”. Bergsmark seems absolutely fascinated with exploring the dichotomy between Sebastian/Ellie and making us confront our doubts and ignorance about what it’s like to want to inhabit a body different than yours. Malmborg, with his James Dean jackets and sensuous smoking, is an exuberant object of desire while the outstanding Becker fearlessly explores her character’s obsessions. Yet it seems that above everything, Bergsmark was more interested in creating a lavish audiovisual experience than a probing character study.

Perhaps inspired by the recent work of queer auteur Xavier Dolan, he shows us many ravishing sequences that amount to absolutely nothing within the scheme of things. As a lonely Sebastian decides to get urinated by two men, Bergsmark turns the moment of raw denial into a gorgeous Pieta-like tableau set to Peggy Lee’s “You’re My Thrill”, but as the chanteuse exclaims “you’re my thrill, you do something to me, you send chills right through me” we realize that sadly the provocation we’re watching is never as exciting as what the song’s lyrics suggest.