in the name of the father: the representation of fatherhood in scandinavian cinema

CULT312 Dissertation: In the name of the FatherThomas Pinder

In the name of the Father:

Fathers in Contemporary Scandinavian Cinema

Thomas Pinder

CULT312

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Dissertation: In the name of the Father: Fathers in Contemporary

Scandinavian Cinema

‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark’1

- Marcellus, Hamlet, 1:4, 90.

Scandinavian cinema has a problem with men. Depictions of men,

masculinity and fatherhood are negative at best, when indeed the

man is present at all. This essay explores the demasculinisation of

the male subject in terms of the role purpose built to define him,

fatherhood. Like all cinema, no exploration of its messages, themes

and effects can be wholly understood outside of the context of its

history, and this presents a unique problem for Scandinavian

cinema in light of the focus of this essay. The spectre of Ingmar

Bergman looms over Scandinavia’s cinematic heritage, the literal

patriarch whose legacy many contemporary directors are still

attempting to negotiate, either through homage or subversion.

Before one can examine the question of how fathers are

represented today, one must first navigate the Daddy-issues of

Scandinavia’s recent past.

Born on 14th July 1918, Ingmar Bergman would become, in the eyes

of many, one of the greatest film directors of all time. Indeed,

Woody Allen once called him ‘probably the greatest film artist, all

things considered, since the invention of the motion picture

1 William Shakespeare, Hamlet (London: Penguin Books, 2005) p. 31.

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camera.’2 Similarly Peter Cowie in his book ‘Swedish Cinema: From

Ingeborg Holm to Fanny and Alexander’ posits that:

Bergman is both the envy and the inspiration of Swedish

directors. They may resent working in his shadow, but they

also bask in the light of his achievement and celebrity. For

many artists and critics around the world, he is quite simply

the greatest film director of all film directors.3

High praise such as this is what the current crop of Scandinavian

directors has to contend with, and Cowie accurately observes the

fine line they tread between shadow and glory in doing so. What

influence then does Bergman’s work have on the representation of

fatherhood? One of Bergman’s earliest films, Summer Interlude

(1951) deals with the relationship between the two protagonists

Henrik (Birger Malmsten) and Marie (Maj-Britt Nilsson). Cowie

observes that,

Henrik, [Marie’s] boyfriend, appears to have no ‘occupation’

whatever, and carries round with him a delicate white poodle,

treating it with the same care and affection as a young mother

would lavish on her baby…Henrik gives an impression of

2 Mervyn Rothstein, ‘Ingmar Bergman, Master Filmmaker, Dies at 89’, <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/movies/30cnd-bergman.html?_r=1> [accessed 03.02.11].3 Peter Cowie, Swedish Cinema: From Ingeborg Holm to Fanny and Alexander (Stockholm: Stellan Stals Tryckerier AB, 1985) p. 143.

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hesitancy and languor, two traits habitually associated with

women.4

Bergman’s representation of Henrik is of a weak male, setting the

trend to follow for the next sixty years. It is interesting to note that

Henrik’s fatherly attention is focused upon the dog, though one

could argue that his emasculated characterisation, alongside his

feminised traits, constitutes a more motherly approach to his care of

the poodle as Cowie perceives. The dog itself is a breed more often

associated with women rather than men and the whole image of

Henrik completely subverts the concept of the strong, masculine

father. This portrayal of the Scandinavian male is at odds with the

characterisation of masculinity that Bergman depicted in the 1940s,

whilst he was still learning his craft. Cowie notes that in films such

as Crisis (1945) and It Rains on Our Love (1946), the eponymous

anti-hero of this prentice phase in Bergman’s career is a down-at-

heel bohemian, rejected by the authorities and the bourgeois

majority, and yet scorned by the intellectuals.5 Whilst at odds with

the characterisation of men like Henrik, the males of Bergman’s first

works are nevertheless outside of societal acceptability. Though not

feminised or emasculated, their presentation is one of rebellious

conflict, and their lack of a role in society is indicative of the

problematic representations of strong male characters and fathers

that will proceed them. By living outside of the accepted standard, 4 Cowie, op cit, p.43.5 Cowie, op cit, pp. 37-38.

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these males are equally as alienated as their feminised

counterparts, and will struggle to reassert themselves in positive

ways over the coming years.

Though the anxiety of influence suffered by many under the spirit of

Bergman is considerable, he is not the only Scandinavian director to

have forged a successful career in the mid-twentieth century. Nor is

he the only director whose films tackle issues surrounding

masculinity and fatherhood. The Pram (1963), directed by a Swedish

contemporary of Bergman’s, Bo Widerberg, centres its attention on

the young female character of Britt (Inger Taube), who rather

carelessly becomes pregnant, but the father, a young musician,

soon vanishes from the scene.6 Similarly, Vilgot Sjöman’s The Dress

(1964) highlights instances in which mother and daughter seek to

sweep away all traces of male dominance and conceit.7 Their

reasons for doing so emphasise a belief in the realisation of the

family idyll through the absence of the male. To them the male is an

intrusion, a disharmonious presence that threatens to upset the

balance of their relationship. Björkman argues that this is in part

due to the stylistic choices of the director, highlighting Sjöman’s

conscious desire to stylise and rationalise conflicts which might

have been given a stronger personal basis and thus a greater

general validity.8 However, regardless of the director’s conscious

6 Stig Björkman, Film in Sweden: The New Directors, translated by. Barrie Selman (The Tantivy Press: London, 1977) p.13.7 Björkman, op cit, p. 33.8 Björkman, op cit, p. 34.

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desires the end result still embalms the death of the strong male

character through his subjugation to women. This trope of strong

women and weak men is emphatically symptomatic of

Scandinavia’s, and specifically Sweden’s, movement into the 1960s.

Sweden’s own official website comments on their ‘pioneer’ status of

the sexual revolution in this decade and through the 1970s, and

their drive toward gender equality throughout this period.9 Sjöman’s

film I Am Curious Yellow (1967) introduced and exacerbated the

concept of ‘Swedish Sin’ in its frank and liberal depictions of sex and

sexuality. Of further note, the film itself also contains perhaps the

most literal iteration of demasculinisation (albeit in a dream), when

Lena (Lena Nyman) shoots her lover Börje (Börje Ahlstedt) and then

cuts off his penis.

The struggle that cinematic males seemed to find themselves in

during this period is perhaps best encapsulated in Roy Andersson’s

1970 film A Swedish Love Story. Whilst the central narrative

concentrates on Annika (Ann-Sofie Kylin), the parallel story of her

parents offers a glimpse of the toil exerted by Scandinavian males

searching for their place in society, and striving to keep it. Björkman

opines that Annika’s father, John (Bertil Norström) has been

deformed in the course of his strenuous battle to attain a position in

society. His anxiety is an expression of the incompleteness and

9 Åke Daun, ‘The Swedish Myths: True, false, or somewhere in between?’ September 1st 2005 <http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Lifestyle/Reading/The-Swedish-myths-True-false-or-somewhere-in-between/> [accessed 04.02.11].

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impoverishment of his own personality.10 The concerted effort of the

Scandinavian male to reassert himself ultimately only accentuates

the capitulation of his downfall.

It is with this in mind that we can turn our attention to the more

present day, and offer an alternative father figure of contemporary

Scandinavian cinema to that of Bergman and his peers. Lars Von

Trier and Thomas Vinterberg initiated the Dogme movement in 1995

as a direct counter to their legendary predecessor and the rise and

rise of the heavily stylised Hollywood industry, in an attempt to

redefine the cultural and societal boundaries of Scandinavian film

and filmmaking. Festen (dir. Thomas Vinterberg 1998), or to give it

its full title Dogme #1 – Festen, deals with the implosion of a family

at its patriarch’s sixtieth birthday party after the eldest son accuses

his father of sexually abusing him and his twin sister when they

were children. With such revelatory accusations at the centre of the

film one could easily be forgiven for overlooking some of the other

incidents that take place, or indeed retrospectively dismiss them as

acts perpetrated by those with acute psychological trauma.

However, to do so would be ignorant of the multifaceted nature of

each of the characters, for while Helge Klingelfeldt (Henning

Moritzen) is at the heart of this story, his tale of debauchery is not

the only one being told.

10 Björkman, op cit, p. 105.

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The film opens with an establishing shot of expansive Danish

countryside dissected by a road on which walks a man soon to be

identified as Christian Klingelfeldt (Ulrich Thomsen). As he talks on

his phone concerning his whereabouts, he states that he is ‘At the

land of my father, it’s beautiful.’11 In light of what transpires, it is

argued here that this piece of seemingly expositional dialogue is in

fact Vinterberg’s emphatic refusal of Scandinavia’s cinematic

legacy, or at the very least a perfunctory gloss over that legacy

before he proceeds to dismantle it. The Danish countryside as the

land of Christian’s father is analogous to what Vinterberg sees as

the impressionistically fertile land of his forebears, a profitable and

verdant landscape beneath which problems are rife. One can later

extend this metaphor to include the entire Klingelfeldt-Hansen

family, whose desire to blindly pursue the niceties of civilised

society in the wake of Christian’s news (glass-tapping to announce

speeches, Klaus Bondam’s toastmaster motivating proceedings)

seems designed only to serve the purpose of keeping up

appearances while the established order of things crumbles down

around them. I believe this is what is at the heart of Festen;

attacking the establishment (fathers) because it is accepted without

question. Christian is rightfully angry with his father for the crimes

he has committed, the family is content to accept these crimes

without question as anything other than the truth and Vinterberg is

attacking Bergman’s legacy through alternative filmmaking. If the

11 Festen, (dir Thomas Vinterberg, 1998).

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visual, the image, is superficial, like the Danish countryside,

Vinterberg’s response is to go beneath the aesthetic and emphasise

the technique and form and the architecture and construction of its

creation through Dogme.

Vinterberg is liberated in film form by constraining himself: for

Vinterberg the Dogme movement offers greater creative expression

precisely because of its inherent limitations. As a result, Vinterberg

and the film form share a paradoxical relationship to the characters,

who feel constrained by the actions of their father. Rule ten of the

Dogme manifesto states that the director is not to be credited12, a

stance that Vinterberg and von Trier saw as diametrically opposed

to previous concepts of ownership and auteurism. By liberating

themselves from the mantle of the film’s patriarch, the Danish

directors embody a communal sense of creation, rather than what

they perceived to be the creation of a product through autocracy. In

the film, Helge’s role as the father is the onscreen personification of

the very values that Vinterberg is striving to refute. By showcasing

this familial dictator, Vinterberg can proceed to deconstruct the

previous establishment by emphasising its flaws and failings to the

point of excess. The greatest revelation therefore, comes not with

Christian’s accusations, but in one of Helge’s attempted rebuttals,

‘Is it my fault I have such talentless offspring? It was all you were

12 Lars von Trier & Thomas Vinterberg, ‘Dogme 95: The Vow of Chastity in Technology and Culture: The Film Reader, ed. by Andrew Utterson (Routledge: Oxon, 2005) p.88.

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good for.’ Helge’s outburst encapsulates the anxiety of influence

internalised by many of the current crop of Scandinavian directors,

ever striving to forge a unique identity for themselves under the

spectre of their past.

As Vinterberg deconstructs notions of (re)presentation, both in the

world of the film and in and of its construct, added emphasis is

placed upon the actors in their roles as the characters to deliver

engaging performances in a film so stripped of technical gimmickry.

Consequently, and in tandem with the unrelenting and near-

intrusive realism that Dogme strives to achieve, the relationships

between the characters are further stressed by a director

attempting to impart meaning in the absence of certain techniques

that would otherwise imply or augment it. As such, the relationship

between Helge and his children is not the only one being

scrutinised.

Thomas Bo Larsen plays Helge’s second son Michael, and portrays

him with such aggression that one can barely resist a

psychoanalytical approach to his character. Though it is later

revealed that Michael escaped the sexual abuse this is only because

of his attending a boarding school for the majority of his child-life.

Moreover, we also learn that Michael has not actually been invited

to the celebrations because of his previously drunken behaviour.

Michael has, at best, a fractious and highly volatile relationship with

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his parents, a relationship that he attempts to deal with through

violence and aggression. In interview, Bo Larsen himself has stated

that ‘[Michael] is looking for his father’s respect by beating people

up’13. Though much of the attention is naturally on Helge and what

he did to his children, it is important that the character of Michael is

not forgotten for what his father didn’t do. Michael’s erratic

behaviour can easily be construed as a manifestation of the absence

of a father figure in his life. The poor treatment of his wife and

children, the affair with the serving girl and the beating of his father

can all be evidenced as examples of the lack of a traditional

upbringing and the instilling of family values. One is not attempting

to rationalise Michael’s behaviour, merely providing a possible

explanation for it. Through Michael, Vinterberg is strengthening his

position in attacking his forebears by implying that it is simply not

enough to discard ones children and hope for the best, but that the

father must be a positive presence in the child’s life.

It is interesting to note that ‘children’ in the genealogical sense of

the word (that is, those yet to have reached adolescence) are

largely absent from the narrative. Michael’s children are seen early

on but make no further appearances until the closing breakfast

scene. One could argue that this is simply dictated by the

formalities of the dinner, but it also has the effect of framing the

story in the past. The absence of present youth imposes a greater 13 Thomas Bo Larsen, ‘Festen in Retrospect’, in Festen (dir. Thomas Vinterberg, 1998).

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focus upon the older generation and the events of the past, even

the fact that it is Helge’s birthday is course for his friends and

relatives to reminisce over nostalgic episodes. The effect of this is

twofold. Firstly, it emphasises the relativity of the past in shaping

the future, specifically with great importance placed on the role of

the father. As Christian speaks of his ordeal he temporally unseals

an event that has been otherwise locked away. Secondly, and

subsequently, the absence of young children from this scenario acts

a metaphor for their removal from this corrupt environment. Their

reappearance at breakfast, as Helge is politely asked to leave,

represents the reintegration of family values into a familial society

that is attempting to recover without its patriarch. The father is

blamed for the sins of the past and the children are brought more

immediately into the future.

Though Helge is naturally the main antagonist in Festen, he is not

the only father failing to live up to expectation. When he asks

Christian about his current girlfriend and their situation, ‘Can’t you

just have a few kids and move back home?’ Christian’s reply is,

‘She’s having someone else’s kid.’ Christian’s failings with women

and his unsuccessful attempts to start a family of his own have

further attention drawn to them when Helge angrily rebukes his

accusations with a number of his own; ‘Lovely women you let go by

year after year because there is so little man in you.’ For Helge, it

seems the desire and the ability to settle down is a defining quality

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of masculinity, and one his eldest son lacks. Christian’s inability to

settle down may very well be linked to any latent fears he may hold

pertaining to the treatment of his own children, an argument

supported by psychologist Richard Gartner. Gartner states that ‘[w]e

see that the son has been severely damaged by his boyhood abuse,

and has been incapable of intimate relatedness throughout his life.14

Christian is only able to progress to the next stage in masculinity

once he has exorcised the demons he has about his father, asking

Pia (Trine Dyrholm) to live with him in Paris. I believe that this

stands parallel to Vinterberg’s conviction (and that of many of his

contemporaries) in distancing Scandinavian filmmaking from

Bergman. Scandinavian cinema can only move forwards, can only

grow up, once it has dealt with its own daddy-issues. Likewise, one

can posit the father’s abuse and Dogme as a movement as an

attempt to wrestle with the cinematic legacy of Vinterberg’s

predecessors by subverting the traditional role of the father as

teacher, protector and care-giver to the point of perversion.

As with any familial role, the role itself is created by subconscious

parameters decided upon by a society that is in the pursuit of the

ideal. Therefore, it is imperative to analyse the role of the father in

terms of the reaction of the people around him at the time of the

accusations. Christian’s first speech is unsurprisingly denied by his

father, and Gartner asserts that:14 Richard Gartner, ‘Cinematic Depictions of Boyhood Sexual Victimization’, Gender and Psychoanalysis, Volume 4 (1999) pp. 253-289.

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[T]his denial is conveyed and reinforced in the reactions of

those who hear the accusations. The partygoers are

momentarily shocked by each disclosure, but then continue to

celebrate the birthday in a nearly surrealistic manner that

serves as a dramatic enactment of the chronic denial often

seen in incestuous families.15

The film accentuates the absurdity aforementioned, as the family’s

attempts to continue to perform the formalities of the dinner stand

as token endeavours in preserving civility and order. Helge’s role as

father and patriarch is momentarily upheld by the naivety of a

society immersed in strict adherence to rules and regulations and

the need to endorse them to justify them. This self-serving

cyclicality promotes a conflict shyness instinct that seems inherent

in Scandinavian values. A research paper by the Social Science

Research Network published in May 2002 highlights this inbuilt

conflict avoidance. Jette Schramm-Nielsen, member of the

Department of Intercultural Communication and Management at the

Copenhagen Business and author of ‘Conflict Management in

Scandinavia’ found that:

Results show that Scandinavians have an aversion to conflicts,

termed conflict shyness, and that they tend to minimize their

15 Ibid.

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importance and intensity, even when they do exist. The

remedy par excellence to conflicts are talks, at whichever

level the conflicts arise, and if a mutual understanding cannot

be found, then to put a lid on the antagonisms…the

conclusions are drawn that Scandinavian countries are

definitely low-conflict societies with specific conflict solving

strategies conditioned by strong societal norms. These

characteristics have been remarkably enduring.16

Schramm-Nielsen also supports the opinion held by Gartner

concerning the partygoer’s dismissal of Christian’s news, affirming

that it can also be argued that Scandinavians exhibit a high degree

of conformity to social rules that they do not want to step out of line

for fear of sanctions from their kin group.17 Scandinavian conflict

shyness is what I believe to be at the heart of Festen, and is a topic

that will resurface throughout this essay. With regards to its impact

on the image of the father, Helge, knowingly or not, has exploited

this national trait, committing his heinous crimes in a society that is

unlikely to face the reality of them. Helge’s representation of

masculinity and fatherhood is brutal and exploitative, it could be

argued therefore that he is a man even further out of juncture with

his society, a man who does not posses the national traits that so

define his fellow countrymen and their neighbours. With this in

16 Jette Schramm-Nielsen, ‘Conflict Management in Scandinavia’ (May 2002). IACM 15th Annual Conference. <http://ssrn.com/abstract=305153 or doi:10.2139/ssrn.305153> [accessed 03.03.11] p.2.17 Schramm-Nielsen, op cit, p.21.

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mind, we turn our attention to a greater sociological approach in an

effort to contextualise the role of the on screen father by examining

his off screen counterpart in contemporary Scandinavian society.

In their essay ‘The Role of the Father: An Introduction’, Michael E.

Lamb and Catherine S. Tamis-Lemonda posit that ‘fathers play a

number of significant roles – companions, care providers, spouses,

protectors, models, moral guides, teachers, breadwinners – whose

relative importance varies across historical epochs and sub-cultural

groups.’18 Such a long list of complex roles is perhaps somewhat

daunting for what many assume to be simply a naturally inherited

role, but nonetheless it forms an interesting start point for this

analysis. Vinterberg’s father in Festen starts out as all-powerful and

sees that power gradually decline as each of his roles in the familial

commune is systematically deconstructed until it is clear that he has

failed as a father. However, Helge is not alone in this inherently

Scandinavian cinematic tradition of fatherly failings. One need only

cast an eye over the catalogue of Festen’s contemporaries to

support this supposition. Mikael Håfström’s Evil (2003) follows

schoolboy Erik Ponti’s (Andreas Wilson) descent into madness at the

hands of his horrifically abusive stepfather (Johan Rabaeus) and the

violent hyper-masculinised environment of his boarding school.

Lasse Hallström’s My Life as a Dog (1985) deals with 12-year-old

18 Michael E. Lamb & Catherine S. Tamis-Lemonda, ‘The Role of the Father: An Introduction’, in The Role of the Father in Child Development, ed. Michael E Lamb, 4th edition, (John Wiley & Sons: New Jersey, 2004) pp.3-4.

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Ingemar (Anton Glanzelius) and his struggle to assert his masculine

identity in a world without a father, where the most overt

representations of paternal masculinity are disseminated between

his tomboy girl-friend Saga, (Melinda Kinnaman) and Mr. Arvidsson

(Didrik Gustavsson), an old man whom Ingemar interacts with by

reading lingerie articles to. The relationships in Hallström’s film

share many similarities with Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of John

Ajvide Lindqvist’s Let The Right One In (2008), a film to be discussed

in more detail later on this essay. Additionally, two of Susanne Bier’s

films Open Hearts (2002) and After The Wedding (2006 (again to be

discussed in more detail later)) have at their heart conflicted and

flawed fathers, with arresting central performances by Mads

Mikkelsen in both films. Mikkelsen seemingly has a penchant for

disenfranchised fathers, also playing a similar character, Christoffer,

in Ole Christian Madsen’s 2006 film Prag. Lastly, one cannot ignore

the global success of the filmic adaptations of Stieg Larsson’s

Millennium Trilogy (2009-10)19. Incidentally, the original Swedish

title of the first film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is actually Män

som hatar kvinnor, translated as Men who hate women. Here, the

protagonist Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) not only has her own

incredibly complex daddy-issues, but must work alongside Michael

Nyqvist’s Mikael Blomkvist, with whom she shares an emotionally

intricate daughter-lover relationship.

19 Referenced individually in the bibliography

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The above list is not merely a name checking of appropriate films,

but a bank of resources that in light of recent sociological studies of

Scandinavian fatherhood and parenting seem at odds with the

results. For example, in Denmark, 41.3% of men are involved in at

least 14 hours of unpaid child care per week, the highest in

Europe20. Similar studies have emphasised neighbouring country

Sweden’s advanced social welfare system, and its impact as the first

country to introduce a paid parental leave scheme that included an

option for fathers to take paternity leave after the birth of children21.

Likewise, O’Brien goes on to note that ‘a recent trend in Nordic

countries has been to mark a proportion of paid parental leave to be

devoted exclusively to fathers…developed to strengthen fathers’

caring role with their infants and also encourage more fathers to

take leave.’22 Whilst these statistics do not indicate the healthiness

of any given father-child relationship on a relationship by

relationship basis, they do highlight the growing importance of the

father in Scandinavia and the benefits that being a more prominent

father can offer. O’Brien asserts that, ‘In a national evaluation of

parental leave in Denmark, parents reported overwhelming benefits,

notably more time with family – particularly when the child is young

– and a less stressful family environment overall23. Ostensibly, all of

these figures and studies combined highlight a cultural disjuncture

20 Margaret O’Brien, ‘Social Science and Public Policy Perspectives on Fatherhood in the European Union’ in The Role of the Father in Child Development, ed. Michael E Lamb, 4th edition, (John Wiley & Sons: New Jersey, 2004) p. 129.21 O’Brien, op cit, p. 131.22 O’Brien, op cit, p.133.23 O’Brien, op cit, p.138.

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between media and filmic representations of fathers and the

actuality, a claim further supported by F. Deven in a study from June

1994. Deven found that ‘articles examining fathers’ caring

responsibilities were less common than were features describing

men’s failure to provide for their family, particularly after marital

separation.’ Deven concluded that ‘Newspapers offered little in the

way of role models, guidance or support for men seeking a new and

more equal place in the family.’24

Whilst it is taken into account that to consider the highly varied and

multifaceted world of media products as the homogenised construct

of ‘The Media’ is somewhat dangerous, Deven’s case study once

again illuminates a disparity between media representation and

empirical evidence. Like filmic portrayals, print media appears

outwardly obsessed with negative or unfavourable descriptions of

fatherhood. All of the evidence points towards a group of nations

whose attitudes in relation to fatherhood is highly progressive and

at times has been advantageously revolutionary. Ultimately, this

begs the question, why the discrepancies?

The answers lie perhaps in some other interesting statistics. Despite

Scandinavia’s propensity toward progressive thinking, there is a key

area in parenthood and child development that may contribute to its

cinemas’ daddy-issues. A report by Marisol Lila, Marcel van Aken, 24 F. Deven, Men, media and childcare, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publication of the European Communities, 1994.

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Gonzalo Musitu and Sofia Buelga entitled ‘Families and adolescents’

detailed that:

There is a European trend to marry or live with a partner at a

later age, with an average increase of 3-4 years in all

European countries, of which Denmark and Sweden are the

countries where this trend is largest. Sweden has also been

shown as one of the European countries with the highest

divorce rate.25

Moreover, Lila et al further contest that there are a growing number

of single-person households in Europe; 44.8% of Danish households

fall into this category, the highest in the continent. Similarly, 18.8%

of families are single-parent families in Denmark and both Sweden

and Denmark also have the highest percentages of reconstructed

families/step families.26 Lila’s et al research seems to indicate that

despite recent improvements in Scandinavian welfare towards

promoting the importance of the father, it is the identity of the

traditional family unit that is facing the greater crisis. Whilst initial

developments in parent-child relationships appear strong, one could

argue that they lack a level of consistency that would benefit the

child throughout the entirety of his/her formative years. This ‘burst’

parenting potentially warps the statistics in terms of early-years

25 Marisol Lila, Marcel van Aken, Gonzalo Musitu & Sofia Buelga, ‘Families and adolescents’ in Handbook of Adolescent Development, eds. Sandy Jackson & Luc Goossens, (Psychology Press: East Sussex, 2006) p.156.26 Lila et al, op cit, p.157.

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development at the cost of long term nurturing. With just under a

fifth of all households in Denmark being single-parent families then

obviously we can deduce that around of fifth of Denmark’s children

are growing up with only one parent (and if we can safely assume

that the majority of these are mother-child families, then they are

growing up with absent fathers). This is not to say that by default

they will automatically become maladjusted or difficult, but it

increases the likelihood that problems will occur. Studies have

exhibited that even in the minority of cases where the single parent

is a father, adolescents tend to show more behavioural problems

(such as substance abuse).27 If the solution to this is to remarry,

then this gives some indication as to Denmark and Sweden’s high

reconstructed family percentage. To further engage with this social

phenomenon, this essay will now explore the issues presented in

Susanne Bier’s After the Wedding as aforementioned, and how her

film deals with the challenges faced by parents and children alike in

the early stages of a reconstructed family. This will not be evaluated

exclusively, however, but alongside a consideration of the

representation of the father once again.

After the Wedding is a unique case for this essay as its two primary

protagonists can both be considered fathers with a positive

influence in the life of their children by the film’s end. As clichéd

rhetoric goes, however, it is not the destination but the journey that

27 Lila et al, op cit, p. 158.

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is of import in the development of these two central characters.

Jørgen Lennart Hannson (Rolf Lassgård) is a loving husband,

successful hotelier and doting father to three children, one of whom,

Anna (Stine Fischer Christensen) is his step-daughter. Anna’s

biological father, Jacob (Mads Mikkelsen) is unknown to her, and

works in India at a Mumbai orphanage where he shares a

particularly close father-son like relationship with one of the boys,

Pramod (Neeral Mulchandani). As the events in the film unfold, it

becomes apparent that Jørgen is dying and is attempting to

persuade Jacob into taking his place in the family to look after Anna,

his other children and his wife (and Jacob’s ex-girlfriend), Helene

(Sidse Babett Knudsen). The fact that Jørgen is dying is crucial, not

only with regards to the plot, but in relation to his role as the father.

In the three films analysed in depth in this essay, Festen, After the

Wedding and Let the Right One In, it is only Jørgen who can be

considered a model father, and he is the only father who dies.

The unique situation in After the Wedding is that both Jørgen and

Jacob are fathers and step-fathers simultaneously. Jørgen has his

biological sons, the twins Morten and Martin (Kristian Gullits Ernst

and Frederik Gullits Ernst) but is also step-father to Anna, Jacob is

Anna’s real father, but will serve as step-father to Morten and

Martin, and indeed can already be considered a kind of foster-father

to Pramod. There is one key element here though, and it is to do

with the twins, Morten and Martin. This film is not about the twins. It

22


is about the two fathers and Anna in the middle. With the amount of

attention focused upon the relationships between these three

characters, the effect that the events have on the twins is never

remotely approached. Their entire screen time amounts to roughly

six minutes and the consequences of the events in the film are

never discussed with the twins in mind. Their limited presence

directs us to accept that because of their age their understanding of

such events is narrow at best, and that they will simply accept the

consequences. With this in mind, one can consider Bier’s film as a

critique of the prevalence of reconstructed families in Denmark, and

the need to reclaim the traditional family unit as a vessel for

happiness and security. Though this opinion may seem harsh, even

somewhat arbitrary to simply disregard two characters in such a

way to support an argument that requires their absence, I believe it

is justified because of the strict focus of the film on Anna, Jørgen

and Jacob. In the DVD extra ‘Deleted Scenes in Context’, Bier

emphasises cutting a particular scene in which Jørgen breaks down

in front of the boys on their fishing trip. Had this scene been

included then perhaps greater attention would have been required

to be paid to the effect of Jørgen’s death on the twins, but a

consequence of its deletion is that the focus of the film remains

firmly on the relationship triangle of stepfather-father-daughter.

Bier has stated that she believes Jørgen’s plan is ‘similar to the role

of parenting’, and asks ‘Do we have the right to interfere with other

23


people’s lives?’28 Ultimately the potential answers to this question

are multifaceted and highly contextually dependent, but

nonetheless Bier’s chosen phraseology seems satisfyingly

appropriate for this essay. Bier equates at least some part of

parenting with the idea of interference, intrusion. Jørgen’s

machinations position him as puppet master, pulling at the heart

strings of individuals to bring his plan together, and thus parenting

becomes divine with Jørgen an interventionist god. In his scheming

to bring Anna and Jacob closer together Jørgen treats them both like

children, guiding their paths with a heavy hand under the guise of

entrepreneurial morality. Jørgen’s patriarchal influence looms over

proceedings with a paradoxical omnipotence; while Jacob asks him

‘Is it fun playing God you big, fat pig?’29 Jørgen remains powerless in

the face of his own death. His mounting frustrations in facing his

inevitable and impending demise are tacitly indicative of man

desperately trying to maintain the status quo whilst in full

knowledge of the need to move on. Jørgen, for all his love, power

and respect, is powerless to prevent the onset of his cancer and

seeks to replace his approaching absence with a like-for-like

substitute in Jacob. It is precisely for these reasons that Jørgen has

to die. His efforts to preserve his reality in light of his death

undermine the progressive attitude held by Scandinavia in the

development of the role of the father. He has become an overlord of

28 Susanne Bier, ‘A Conversation with Susanne Bier’ in After the Wedding (dir. Susanne Bier, 2006).29 After the Wedding, (dir. Susanne Bier, 2006).

24


stagnancy and acceptance, a deified incarnation of familial inertia in

a system that passively consents to reconstruction, to plastering

over the wound. His death serves to empower change; Jacob will

reconstitute the traditional family unit.

Jacob’s ascent to fatherhood embodies a cultural shift in attitudes

towards fatherhood. A. M. Jensen cites that, ‘The so-called

detraditionalization of fatherhood has been an implicit strand in

European social policy and family analysis, where fathers are

conceptualized as moving from an ascribed to an achieved status.’30

Jacob has spent his life unknowingly running from his fatherly

responsibilities and now finds himself having to adhere to Jensen’s

description of achieving his previously considered inherited status

as father. Initially, his fortunes are ill-fated, Helene rants to Anna

about Jacob:

Jacob was a big immature child! He fucked everything with a

pulse. He was drinking himself to death. He did drugs. He had

grand ideas but did nothing. He probably means well but you

can’t trust. He wants to save everyone but…

Anna’s biting reply is simple and effective: ‘I have a right to know

who my father is!’ Anna’s insistence upon her genealogical right

creates an interesting struggle with regards to Jensen’s assertion. 30 A.M. Jensen, Partners and parents in Europe: A gender divide, in Comparative Social Research, Volume 18, (1999): 1-29.

25


Though Jensen argues that fatherhood specifically has shifted from

an ascribed to an achieved status, to be a father one must obviously

have children. Thus, though Jacob may have to earn his right to be

Anna’s father, there is no such pressure on Anna to be worthy of her

role as his daughter. Her explicit remarks are fundamental to the

focus of the film; forgiving the father for the sins of the past. This is

the emotional heartbeat of Bier’s film. It is important to distinguish

this concept from simply forgiving the failings of men. It is implied

that Jacob and Helene’s relationship was tempestuous at best, and

Helene still has to suffer in the shadow of Jørgen’s drinking.

Similarly, Anna’s new husband is sleeping with another woman, and

it is of great magnitude to highlight the fact that Anna only ‘gains’

her biological father after she loses both her husband and the man

who raised her all her life. This distinction is imperative because

Jørgen and Jacob are forgiven by both Helene and Anna for their

failings. Christian (Christian Tafdrup), Anna’s husband, is not.

Jacob’s relationship with his daughter is not the only fatherly

relationship he has in the film. Though less prevalent in the grand

scheme of the film, his relationship with the young orphan boy

Pramod does provoke some noteworthy insights into his own

character. Bier has characterised Jacob as something of a boy-man,

asserting that by ‘living in India [Jacob] misses out on intimacy and

love between grown-ups. He doesn’t actively seek it. Maybe he has

26


a fear of intimacy.’31 His relationship with Pramod in comparison to

other relationships he has in the film seems to support this point of

view. We are shown that Jacob has already built up a (successful)

fatherly mantle towards the young orphan and that he appears far

more comfortable in his presence than he does in the presence of

any of the Scandinavian adults, his own daughter included. This is

further emphasised when Jacob attends the wedding reception, and

is most at ease when playing football with the twins than at any

other time. His rejection of intimacy at an adult level ranges from

the rejection of familial contact to the rejection of the sexual

advances of a drunken wedding guest. It would be naïve to suggest

that these reactions are simply borne out of his unease at attending

the wedding of a business client’s daughter, but more prominent to

assert that they are more active indicators and momentary

characterisations of Jacob’s personality and the astigmatisms he

attaches to the world of the adult, namely cynicism and greed. For

Jacob, adults are always out to get something; there is always an

ulterior motive, an agenda. Jørgen eventually calls Jacob out on this,

plainly asking, ‘Do I have to live on the other side of the world to get

your help?’ an ardent assault on Jacob’s detachment from familial

issues. Jørgen is asking both Jacob and us to view Jacob differently.

To this point Jacob has been cast as a man who has been wronged

and is struggling to come to terms with the news that he has a

daughter. With Jørgen’s question, we are asked to consider Jacob as 31 Susanne Bier, ‘A Conversation with Susanne Bier’ in After the Wedding (dir. Susanne Bier, 2006).

27


a man who has forever dealt with his problems by running away

from them, by distancing himself from them, by removing himself

from the necessity of conflict.

This apparent shyness or outright avoidance of conflict is something

that has been broached earlier in this essay, but will now be re-

examined in context with other global cinemas, with a particular

contrast to be made between Scandinavian cinema and its

Hollywood counterpart.

It is no sweeping generalisation to state that Hollywood cinema is

infatuated with the male body almost as much as it is with the

female one. Though perhaps its interest in male musculature has

waned or reframed in the contemporary era, it nevertheless still

plays a sizeable role in constituting the ideal on-screen male, and

thus by extension, the on-screen father. During the 1980s the all-

conquering muscle-bound action hero was a staple of Hollywood

cinema with the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone

and Bruce Willis dominating the silver screen. Yvonne Tasker, author

of Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema

speculates that this was an era of ‘previously unseen cinematic

articulation of masculinity…the muscular action hero was, for some,

a figure who represented the antithesis of the ‘new man’’.32

Arguments concerning the battle between the muscular action hero 32 Yvonne Tasker, Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema (London: Routledge, 1993) p.1.

28


and the ‘new man’ of the 1980s can be found elsewhere, it is

enough to know here that muscles and brawn were experiencing a

vitalising surge in these years. Therefore, for the purposes of this

essay, the question now becomes what impact does this have on

cinematic representations of fatherhood?

Tasker conceives that ‘various critics have seen the muscular body

of the action hero as a triumphant assertion of male power’33 and it

is argued here that there is a direct relation between this assertion

and the political and military involvements of America since the

Second World War. If the western genre and the cowboy embodied

that American sensibility of sweeping frontiersmanship, so the

muscular action hero paralleled the fact that America has been

involved in more wars than any other country since the end of the

Second World War. America’s ongoing military conflicts provided the

perfect platform for Hollywood to exhibit various iterations of the all-

conquering hero. The likes of Schwarzenegger and Stallone as Major

Alan "Dutch" Schaefer (Predator, dir. John McTiernan, 1987) and

John Rambo (Rambo First Blood, dir. Ted Kotcheff, 1982)

respectively embodied this gung-ho attitude toward military action

and the representation of the male body as (in Tasker’s words) a

triumphant assertion of male power. But these representations only

serve to personify an overarching mode of patriarchy and lack the

intricate and crafted definition of the paternity of fatherhood.

33 Tasker, op cit, p. 9.

29


Supporting this stance, Barbara Creed writes on the bodybuilder

physique (with particular attention to Schwarzenegger) in her essay

‘From Here to Modernity: Feminism and Postmodernism’. She

argues that the bodybuilder has become the ‘simulacra of

exaggerated masculinity, the original completely lost to sight, a

casualty of the failure of the paternal signifier and the current crisis

in master narratives.’34 Whilst I tend to agree with Creed’s argument

that masculinity has become an overblown, excessive

representation of her conception of its ideal, it is the very idea of the

ideal that is somewhat problematic. Creed’s argument stems from

an ontological and anthropological fallacy, in part perpetuated by

cinema, that the ideal we are seemingly in pursuit of is a

hermetically sealed unification of predetermined factors constituted

from various parts in order to achieve a commonly held ‘perfection’.

What her reasoning fails to consider is the appropriateness of the

male physique with regards to its context, and how this impacts on

representations of fatherhood. Tasker rightly calls attention to ‘the

very redundancy of Schwarzenegger’s muscles when dealing with a

class of small children’35 in his role as John Kimble in Kindergarten

Cop (dir. Ivan Reitman, 1990), but both Creed and Tasker neglect to

consider the fatherly functions performed by both Schwarzenegger

and Stallone in the Terminator and Rocky36 films respectively.

34 Barbara Creed, ‘From Here to Modernity: Feminism and Postmodernism’ Screen Volume: 28 (1987): pp. 47-68. 35 Tasker, op cit, p.8236 Both franchises referenced individually in the bibliography

30


Though it could be argued that perhaps Schwarzenegger only

performs a guardian role rather than a fatherly one in protecting

John Connor, he is still the strongest and most prominent male

figure in the boy’s life. Without doubt Stallone as Rocky Balboa

(particularly in later sequels of the franchise) relies on his physique

as a means of bread-winning and as the catalyst to perform all his

other duties as a husband and a father; his muscle is a necessity in

fulfilling his fatherly responsibilities.

These representations were not the only versions of on-screen

fatherhood at the time, and it would be foolish to suggest that they

are wholly indicative of such, but likewise it would be naïve to

ignore their political and social dialogue with the American culture

of the time. This directly opposite approach to masculinity and

fatherhood provides an interesting contrast to the more muted

Scandinavian model, replacing conflict shyness with what could be

described as a conflict eagerness, or even conflict blindness or

tunnel vision. These representations are borne out of a society that

demands that one must first be a ‘man’, and prove it, before one

can be worthy of becoming of a father. However, moving more

toward the present day and one can notice a shift in Hollywood’s

attitude toward fatherhood, not least in the films of Steven

Spielberg.

31


Taking Spielberg’s 2002 film Minority Report as an example (though

indeed any number of his films could equally exemplify what is

about to follow), Tom Cruise is John Anderton, a man who has lost

his son (and by extension his wife) and gained a father (in Max von

Sydow’s Lamar Burgess). The film positions Anderton as a man in

crisis; a father without a child, an adult still relying on his ‘parent’.

Like his Hollywood predecessors, Cruise as Anderton must still

satiate his appetite for conflict, but now the motivation is different.

Whereas Schwarzenegger and Stallone fought to embody a

patriarchal autocracy embedded in a culture of Uncle Sam can-do

hoorah, Cruise personifies a narrative of redemption, an

acknowledgement of the failure of the father and his attempts to

win back his status. Schwarzenegger’s and Stallone’s quest begins

with them as men and ends with them as fathers, Cruise’s begins

with him stripped of fatherhood as a punishment for a belief in the

entitlement of the position and ends with him re-establishing

himself as a man through fatherhood.

In this regard, Spielberg’s adaptation shares its fundamental values

with Jensen’s previously cited theories of the earning of fatherhood

transitioning from an ascribed to an achieved status. Though Cruise

must still achieve his fatherhood in the traditional Hollywood mould

(his relentless need for action finally reinstates him as a father to

the pre-cog Agatha), the liminal position he inhabits at the start of

the film and the journey he must undertake to regain his status has

32


a lot in common with the Scandinavian father. Both it seems are at

war with the sins of the past, struggling to come to terms with what

has previously transpired and as a result failing in their present (as

fathers) and their future (the lives their children could lead).

The lives of the children and their welfare is of course a major

consequence of the role of the father, who naturally has a

significant impact on their upbringing, present or absent, for better

or worse. However, John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel Let The Right One

In, adapted by Tomas Alfredson in 2008 asks the question of what

happens when the children themselves take on those fatherly

responsibilities? The film charts the close relationship between

twelve year old boy Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) and the ostensibly

twelve year old girl Eli (Lina Leandersson) and the impact their

presence has on one other’s life. Due to the divorce of parents

because of his father’s alcoholism, Oskar has been without a father

for the majority of his formative years and as such struggles to

carve out a (accepted) masculine identity for himself. In a study by

Michael E. Lamb and Catherine S. Tamis-Lemonda based on

research by Hetherington and Stanley-Hagan in 1997, they found

that ‘children (especially boys) growing up without fathers seemed

to have problems in areas of sex-role and gender-identity

development, school performance, psychosocial adjustment, and

perhaps in the control of aggression.’37 Oskar conforms to every 37 Michael E. Lamb & Catherine S. Tamis-Lemonda, ‘The Role of the Father: An Introduction’, in The Role of the Father in Child Development, ed. Michael E Lamb,

33


aspect of this list, with the sex-role and gender identity areas being

of particular interest and an area that will be examined in greater

detail later. The absence of his father or a father-figure in his life

affects his social development and wellbeing. He is bullied at school,

views violent retribution as a viable and justifiable form of

retaliation, is friendless until Eli’s arrival and invests greater

emotional attachment to the serial killers and murderers he reads

about in the news than his peers, his teachers or even his mother.

In tandem with this reading, further study would mostly categorise

Oskar as neglected with aspects of rejected, his personality and

behaviour consistent with the research of Goosens et al.:

Neglected: Adolescents who are neither liked nor disliked by

many peers. They receive little attention from their peers, to

whom they are more or less indifferent and not well-known.

These adolescents are peaceful, shy and reserved but not as

socially withdrawn as some of the rejected adolescents.

Although they evince less sociability than their average peers,

they respect the rules and are engaged in socially accepted

activities although to a lesser degree than the more accepted

children and in more solitary forms. In sum, these are the

adolescents who function normally, but no one notices them.

4th edition, (John Wiley & Sons: New Jersey, 2004) p.6.

34


Rejected: Adolescents who are more disliked than liked by

their peers. Rejected adolescents are found to be more

aggressive and disruptive than others, they violate social and

institutional rules more easily and have more conflicts with

other peers or teachers. The display of aggression alone,

however, does not account for the adolescents to be rejected.

What leads to rejection is their aggression in combination with

their low social competence. The rejected adolescents lack

positive qualities to balance their aggressive behaviors

(Newcomb et al., 1993). Rejected children and adolescents

can also be more socially withdrawn and isolated, and express

higher levels of depression and anxiety than their non-

rejected peers. Although social withdrawal can be a

consequence rather than a cause for rejection anxiety and

depression may contribute substantially to the maintenance of

rejection over time. As is clear, there are two distinct factors

that may lead to rejection: aggressive and disruptive

behaviors on one side, and socially withdrawn and inhibited

behaviors on the other. 38

Oskar’s neglected and rejected tropes are symptomatic of the

fatherless child. The problems he suffers can be directly traced back

to the lack of a stable father figure in his life, and as such he seeks

38 Goossens, Scholte, van Aken & Hildebrand in Ron H. J. Scholte & Marcel A.G. Van Aken, ‘Peer relations in adolescence’ in Handbook of Adolescent Development, eds. Sandy Jackson & Luc Goossens, (Psychology Press: East Sussex, 2006) p.184.

35


to right this by forming strong emotional bonds with others, bonds

that are not always to his benefit. However, one bond that

seemingly provides everything he needs is the relationship he forms

with Eli.

Though apparently a twelve year old girl, Eli performs many of the

fatherly functions in Oskar’s life that he has been lacking to this

point. Most obviously, Eli offers a hand of overt masculinity in

helping Oskar deal with his bullies through violence. Eli accepts the

fatherly role, telling Oskar to ‘hit back. You’ve never hit back have

you? So do it. Hit back. Hard…Hit back even harder. Hit back harder

than you dare. Then they’ll stop.’39 Though the ultimate fate of the

bullies is somewhat extreme in comparison to what Eli’s statement

would usually entail, her guidance nevertheless sounds familiar to

what any parent might say to their child in this situation. The fact

that the violence is so extreme when it comes (both when Oskar hits

Conny with the stick and when Eli kills three of the bullies) is

precisely because these are children exacting the bloodshed, not

adults.

To extrapolate, critic Mark Kermode has defined Let The Right One

In as ‘not a story of sex and sexuality, but a story in which

vampirism represents the pent up aggression of a young child.’40 As

39 Let The Right One In (dir. Tomas Alfredson, 2008).40 Mark Kermode, http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermode/2009/10/the_tensecond_vampyre_movie.html [accessed 16.04.2011]

36


Kermode astutely observes, unlike historic cinematic vampiric

incarnations the film is about rage and not a metaphor for sex and

sexuality. Thus, the film stands in direct contrast to the previously

accepted notion of Scandinavian conflict shyness. The violent action

taken by Oskar and Eli is an emphatic refusal of the status quo. In a

world where adults stand for inaction and apathy, Oskar and Eli seek

to incite revolution and change. The children have watched their

fathers stand idle for too long and have taken responsibility for

themselves.

Eli’s new found fatherly role is not without problems, however.

Fulfilling her three roles as friend, girlfriend and parent means she

must straddle the demands of all three, and this is not without

consequence, particularly with regards to the girlfriend-father

dynamic. Ron H. J. Scholte and Marcel A.G. Van Aken argue that

‘during adolescence intimacy and companionship are provided more

by the adolescent’s friendships, whereas nurturance and

attachment are sought more in the parent-adolescent

relationship’41, and now Eli is entangled in a situation where she

must constantly cross both boundaries. A problem arises here out of

Eli’s need to transcend these traditional relationship borders. Acting

as both Oskar’s girlfriend and father contributes to a quasi-Freudian

interpretation of the relationship as a form of emotional (and in part

41 Ron H. J. Scholte & Marcel A.G. Van Aken, ‘Peer relations in adolescence’ in Handbook of Adolescent Development, eds. Sandy Jackson & Luc Goossens, (Psychology Press: East Sussex, 2006) p.189

37


physical) incest. Moreover, such matters are further complicated

upon the revelation that Eli’s true gender is male, subsequently

problematising the already delicate relationship balance into the

realm of homosexual emotional incest.

Comparisons can be drawn here between Alfredson’s film and

Vinterberg’s Festen. Both hinge upon the relationship between the

primary male protagonist and his father figure, and of both father

figures (Helge and Eli) it can be argued that they manipulate the

emotions of their charges for their own ends. The key difference is

that while Helge’s children can only ever be viewed as victims,

Oskar enters the relationship in full knowledge of what he is seeking

from Eli. Eli’s manipulation of Oskar stems from a reading of the film

that first focuses upon her relationship with Håkan (Per Ragnar),

which will be examined in due course.

Returning to Oskar and Eli, Oskar’s dependence upon Eli for his

emotional and social nurturing is of equal import to their

relationship as the sexuality between the two. Eli is Oskar’s sole

figurehead, fulfilling all of his developmental needs. Oskar’s

attachment to Eli conforms to Lamb’s and Tamis-Lemonda’s

previously cited work reasoning that boys growing up without

fathers have problems in areas of sex-role and gender-identity

development. Peculiarly enough, if we momentarily return to After

The Wedding, there is a short exchange between Jørgen and Helene

38


just before Jørgen takes the twins away for the weekend. Dissuading

Helene from joining them Jørgen argues, ‘It’s sons and their fathers

in the woods, otherwise they’ll turn out gay.’ Though only a fleeting

comment made in jest by Jørgen, this aside arguably contains

elements of a homophobic undercurrent also inherent in Let The

Right One In too. Both films are at some point and in their own way

suggesting that the lack of a father can contribute to homosexuality

in the offspring.

Eli and Oskar’s relationship is not the only one on screen that

exhibits facets of the father-child dialogue. The aforementioned

Håkan shares an intimate and complex relationship with Eli. Håkan

is initially set up to appear to be Eli’s biological father, though as the

story unravels we are asked to redefine his function. I use the word

‘function’ here with a degree of deliberation, as it becomes ever

clearer that Håkan’s primary role is as a killer and blood-letter for

Eli. Arguably there is still a case to be made for contextually positive

fatherhood here; Håkan is a single father still working hard to be a

successful breadwinner for his reclusive daughter. Naturally the

waters are muddied when one considers that the bread is blood and

his work involves murdering children, so this does paint a rather

tainted picture of his brand of fatherhood. However, in this regard,

Håkan sits alongside his fellow cinematic luminaries in the tradition

of Scandinavian fatherhood; he is simply yet another failed father.

What is interesting though is that in this instance, the child’s

39


manipulation of the father provides a noteworthy addition to these

otherwise familiar proceedings.

On more than one occasion it is implied that Håkan harbours deep

sexual feelings towards Eli. As such, one is invited to view this as

paedophilic, arguably the ultimate sin an adult can commit against a

child and a father can commit against his own. However, any

potential disgust is problematised somewhat by firstly Eli’s apathy

toward Håkan’s advances, and secondly (and more worryingly) her

apparent reciprocity. The tenderness shown by Eli toward Håkan is

fleeting though still present, and upon closer examination their

relationship could perhaps be better categorised as distanced

husband-wife rather than warped parent-child. To link to an earlier

point, it is possible that Eli’s relationship with Håkan is actually a

future version of her current relationship with Oskar. Despite all her

fatherly affection for Oskar, he will ultimately grow up in adulthood

and adopt a certain amount of those responsibilities for himself. Eli

remains forever trapped in the body of a child, a perverse

embodiment of the Peter Pan mythos, eternally dependent on

another for her survival. Thus one can highlight potential parallels in

the Eli-Oskar and Eli-Håkan relationships, with the latter providing

clues as to the path of the former. There are two accepted readings

of this film. One chooses to embrace the innocence of the

relationship between the two protagonists and reasons that Oskar

and Eli are in love and will start a new life together. The other,

40


arguably a more realistic interpretation, contends that Oskar will

simply inherit Håkan’s role until he either dies of old age or outlives

his purpose and shares the fate of his predecessor.

For this essay, the second reading of the film offers a challenging

contrast to the failed father, that of the knowingly manipulative

child. This would not seem so problematic if it were not for the fact

that Eli does not age. Though both Håkan and Oskar are aware of

Eli’s true age (not specified in the film, but mentioned in the novel

as around two-hundred years old) her outward visual appearance as

a twelve year old girl lends her an air of vulnerability naturally most

oft associated with young children, and the two males (Håkan in

particular because of the (visual) age gap) struggle to get over this

fact. If Eli were simply a manipulative child, Håkan’s failings would

be less justifiable, as part of being a successful parent is understand

how to deal with the demands of children whose lives are arguably

prominently governed by impulsive desire. Eli’s age elevates her

mentality to a near omniscient state for which Håkan has no answer.

Once again the children are in control, revolutionising their own

care. Eli may be dependent upon another for her survival, but she

knows exactly how to get what she wants when she wants it. She

has simply adapted to use her greatest weakness, her childlike

appearance and vulnerability, as one of her most powerful weapons.

41


Like both Festen and After The Wedding, Let The Right One In offers

a critique of more than just the central relationships. The supporting

characters of Lacke (Peter Carlberg) and Virginia (Ika Nord) share an

intimate romantic relationship but are arguably past what would be

considered traditional child bearing and raising age. Like Oskar and

Eli they are characterised as people on the fringes of society, but

their status as adults signifies an acceptance of this position, a

further societal catalyst driving the decision behind Oskar and Eli’s

private revolution. In line with the other adult characters in the film

they are content with their lot in life and do not seek to incite

change or progression. As the instances of this stagnancy more

frequently appear, the idea of forgiving the father for the sins of the

past as propagated in the other films begins to change. Lacke has

placed on constant hiatus his plans to sell his father’s stamp

collection and move to country to start a new life with Virginia, thus

deferring his fatherly responsibilities until it is too late. Oskar’s own

absent father and Eli’s delicate relationship with Håkan only

compound this interpretation, and thus forgiving the father for the

sins of the past is no longer the main objective. Instead it is

replaced with disdain for the father’s past failings, an indifference to

his apathy; forgiveness is replaced with blame and the hole created

by his absence is filled with rage. It is up to Oskar and Eli to channel

this rage into something constructive and create a new generation

of fatherhood in spite of the lack of it in their lives.

42


The three films analysed here by no means provide an exhaustive

account of the issue at hand. What they do is illustrate that the

representation of fathers in Scandinavian cinema is at the heart of

the Nordic condition. Often these films are not directly concerned

with the father’s role and most academic criticism is levelled

elsewhere; Festen is more frequently lauded for its status as Dogme

#1, criticism on After The Wedding tends to deal with issues of race

relations and Scandinavia’s relationship to the rest of the world like

much of Bier’s work, and work on Let The Right One In is more

concerned with the shift from the sexualisation of the vampire in

light of the its cinematic legacy. However, the obvious

pervasiveness of the fatherhood issue warrants a more thorough

investigation, which this essay has attempted to provide. The sheer

lack of information on the subject to date is evokes more than a

sense of the Scandinavian conflict shyness, a culture avoiding the

elephant in the room so as not to upset anyone.

What can be said is that simply acknowledging the issue is not the

same as offering a solution. Hollywood’s own crisis in masculinity

was tackled head on with relentless force and brutal muscle, but the

success of this approach is equally debatable. Mistaking action for

success is an easy error, and much of the bombast and bluster fails

to deal with the social issues behind the need for such an approach

in the first place, and their ostensibly satisfactory outcomes are

rendered superficial by the necessity of a sequel; if Rocky could

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truly provide for his family with his ‘last big fight’, surely this

negates the necessity to constantly re-enter the ring? Hollywood is

more in love with the power than the parent.

There are of course other areas of fatherhood to explore,

particularly with regards to certain cultural issues. Many of the films

mentioned here, including Let The Right One In, are based on books,

and equally others have spawned remakes and/or sequels. Given

greater scope one could easily ascertain the validity of film as a

bastardisation of the source text in line with a parent-child

relationship.

What this essay has shown is that there is a definite issue with the

representation of the father in Scandinavian cinema. Originating

from the work of Bergman and his contemporaries, Scandinavia has

since historically struggled to depict the father in a wholly positive

light. Instances of abuse both physical and emotional, premature

fatherhood and outright absence have manifested out of the need

reassert masculinity in a society that despite taking progressive

steps to reassert the importance of the father has not been involved

in any recent military conflict since the Second World War that

would have allowed for the channelled release of aggression

inherent in shaping masculinity. Whereas Hollywood has

overreached itself and instilled too much emphasis on the need for

aggression and conflict, Scandinavia has shied away from it at the

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cost of its fathers and their children. Goosens argues the case that

‘the psychoanalytical approach to adolescence, for instance, saw

parent-adolescence conflict as an essential force in driving young

people out of their family of origin and into the outside world’42 , and

the lack of this as part of Scandinavia’s culture has damaged an

incredibly important generational relationship onscreen and created

a disconcerting disconnect between fathers and their children.

This essay began with a quotation from Hamlet and thus it seems

fitting to end on one too, though not without an appropriate twist;

frailty, thy name is Dad.

BibliographyBainbridge, Caroline, The Cinema of Lars Von Trier: Authenticity and Artifice (London: Wallflower Press, 2007)

42 Luc Goossens, ‘The many faces of adolescent autonomy: parent-adolescent conflict, behavioural decision-making, and emotional distancing’, in Handbook of Adolescent Development, eds. Sandy Jackson & Luc Goossens, (Psychology Press: East Sussex, 2006) p.137.

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Björkman, Stig, Film in Sweden: The New Directors, translated by. Barrie Selman (The Tantivy Press: London, 1977)

Cowie, Peter, Swedish Cinema: From Ingeborg Holm to Fanny and Alexander (Stockholm: Stellan Stals Tryckerier AB, 1985)

Creed, Barbara, ‘From Here to Modernity: Feminism and Postmodernism’ Screen Volume: 28 (1987): pp. 47-68

Daun, Åke, ‘The Swedish Myths: True, false, or somewhere in between?’ September 1st 2005 <http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Lifestyle/Reading/The-Swedish-myths-True-false-or-somewhere-in-between/> [accessed 04.02.11]

Dawson, Tom, ‘An Interview with Susanne Bier’, Movies, (October 2003) <http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2003/03/12/susanne_bier_open_hearts_interview.shtml> [accessed 23.10.10]

Deven, F., Men, media and childcare, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publication of the European Communities, 1994

Everett, Wendy Ellen, European Identity In Cinema, ed. Wendy Ellen Everett (Bristol: Intellect Books, 2005)

Gartner, Richard, ‘Cinematic Depictions of Boyhood Sexual Victimization’, Gender and Psychoanalysis, Volume 4 (1999) pp. 253-289

Goossens, Luc, ‘The many faces of adolescent autonomy: parent-adolescent conflict, behavioural decision-making, and emotional distancing’, in Handbook of Adolescent Development, eds. Sandy Jackson & Luc Goossens, (Psychology Press: East Sussex, 2006)

Goossens, Scholte, van Aken & Hildebrand in Ron H. J. Scholte & Marcel A.G. Van Aken, ‘Peer relations in adolescence’ in Handbook of Adolescent Development, eds. Sandy Jackson & Luc Goossens, (Psychology Press: East Sussex, 2006) p.184

Hjort, Mette, Small Nation, Global Cinema: The New Danish Cinema (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2005)

Hjort, Mette & Bondebjerg, Ib The Danish directors: Dialogues on a Contemporary National Cinema (Bristol: Intellect Books, 2001)

Hjort, Mette, Jorholt, Eva & Redvall, Eva Novrup, The Danish Directors 2: Dialogues on the New Danish Fiction Cinema (Bristol: Intellect Books, 2010)

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Jensen, A.M., Partners and parents in Europe: A gender divide, in Comparative Social Research, Volume 18 (1999): 1-29

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Kirkham, Pat & Thurmin, Janet, You Tarzan: Masculinity, Movies and Men, eds. Pat Kirkham & Janet Thurmin (London: Lawrence & Wishart Ltd, 1993)

Kirkham, Pat & Thurmin, Janet, Me Jane: Masculinity, Movies and Women, eds. Pat Kirkham & Janet Thurmin (London: Lawrence & Wishart Ltd, 1995)

Lamb, Michael E. & S. Tamis-Lemonda, Catherine, ‘The Role of the Father: An Introduction’, in The Role of the Father in Child Development, ed. Michael E Lamb, 4th edition, (John Wiley & Sons: New Jersey, 2004)

Lehman, Peter, Running Scared: Masculinity and the Representation of the Male Body (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2007)Wood, Jason, Talking movies: Contemporary World Filmmakers in Interview (London: Wallflower Press, 2006)

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O’Brien, Margaret, ‘Social Science and Public Policy Perspectives on Fatherhood in the European Union’ in The Role of the Father in Child Development, ed. Michael E Lamb, 4th edition, (John Wiley & Sons: New Jersey, 2004)

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Tasker, Yvonne, Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema (London: Routledge, 1993)

Vaughan, Hunter ‘Tremble of Truth: Dogme 95, Ideology and the Genealogy of Cinematic Realism’, The Film Journal, Issue 9 (2004) <http://www.thefilmjournal.com/issue9/dogme95.html> [21.10.10]

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FilmsA Swedish Love Story, dir. Roy Andersson (Europa Film, 1970)

After The Wedding, dir. Susanne Bier (Soda Pictures/Nordisk Film, 2006)

Crisis, dir. Ingmar Bergman (Svensk Filmindustri, 1945)

Evil, dir. Mikael Håfstrom (Columbia Tristar/Nordisk Film 2003)

Festen, dir. Thomas Vinterberg (Scanbox Danmark, 1998)

I Am Curious Yellow, dir. Vilgot Sjöman (Sandrews, 1967)

It Rains on Our Love, dir. Ingmar Bergman (Sveriges Folkbiografer, 1946)

Kindergarten Cop dir. Ivan Reitman (Universal Pictures, 1990)

Let The Right One In, dir. Tomas Alfredson (Momentum Pictures/Sandrew Metronome, 2008)

Minority Report, dir. Steven Spielberg (Dreamworks Pictures/20th Century Fox, 2002)

Open Hearts dir. Susanne Bier (Icon Film/Nordisk Film, 2003)

Prag dir. Ole Christian Madsen (Trust Film Sales/Nordisk Film, 2006)

Predator, dir. John McTiernan (20th Century Fox, 1987)

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Rambo: First Blood dir. Ted Kotcheff (Orion Pictures, 1982)

Rocky, dir. John G. Avildsen (United Artists, 1976)

Rocky II, dir. Sylvester Stallone (United Artists, 1979)

Rocky III, dir. Sylvester Stallone (United Artists, 1982)

Rocky IV, dir. Sylvester Stallone (United Artists, 1985)

Rocky V, dir. John G. Avildsen (MGM/UA Distribution Co./United International Pictures, 1990)

Rocky Balboa, dir. Sylvester Stallone (MGM, 2006)

Summer Interlude, dir. Ingmar Bergman (Svensk Filmindustri, 1951)

Terminator 2: Judgement Day, dir. James Cameron (Tristar Pictures, 1991)

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, dir. Jonathon Mostow (Warner Bros. Pictures/Columbia Pictures, 2003)

The Dress, dir. Vilgot Sjöman (Svensk Filmindustri, 1964)The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, dir. Niels Arden Oplev (Nordisk Film, 2009)

The Girl who Played with Fire, dir. Daniel Alfredson (Zodiac Entertainment, 2009)

The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, dir. Daniel Alfredson (Zodiac Entertainment, 2009)

The Pram, dir. Bo Widerberg (Europa Film, 1963)

The Terminator, dir James Cameron (Orion Pictures, 1984)

DVD ExtrasBier, Susanne, ‘A Conversation with Susanne Bier’ in After the Wedding (dir. Susanne Bier, 2006)

Bo Larsen, Thomas, ‘Festen in Retrospect’, in Festen (dir. Thomas Vinterberg, 1998)

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CULT312 Dissertation: In the name of the FatherThomas Pinder 50

in the name of the father: the representation of fatherhood in scandinavian cinema

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