SUBMARINO

Denmark, 2010, 110 minutes, Colour.
Jacob Cedergren, Peter Plaugborg.
Directed by Thomas Vinterberg.

A Danish drama blending grit and sentiment. It is the story of two brothers who experience both joy and trauma as young boys with their alcoholic mother and their loved baby brother.

The film tells its story in two parts covering the period of about a month or two in grey and snowy Copenhagen.

First, we glimpse the life of Nik, the older brother, who is full of anger and resentment and just out of prison. But, he is, as we know from the opening, capable of deeper feelings. Secondly, we see the younger brother who is a follower, who loves his little son dearly but is an unreformable and deceitful drug addict.

So, it is two tragic slices of life which intersect. The theme of children offers a sad but not hopeless ending.

1.A Danish drama, two brothers, slices of life?

2.The opening, the close-up of the boys, their playing with the baby, their love for the baby, cherishing it, baptising it, the importance of the name? Each boy’s response? The drunken mother, her collapse, the electrocution? The older brother and his strength? Confronting his mother, her slapping him? Their fooling around, drinking and smoking, going to sleep, their fatal results and the death of the baby? The consequences for them?

3.The city setting, the streets and homes, ordinary? Winter? The score?

4.Nick, his age, his appearance, his resentments and anger, coming out of jail? Sophie and friendship, sexual service? His relenting and the beginning of a relationship with Sophie? His violent confrontations with the old man, the noise in the house, threatening him? Seeing Ivan in the gutter? Listening to him? Taking him to the gym, buying the jersey, alert to trouble? The news that his mother had died, his going to the funeral? His relationship with Ana, seeing her with her husband, the child? His tattoos? Sophie and her wanting to get her son, with her son, his handing over the boy to the police? The telephone calls to his brother, no answer? Going to the house, hearing the response of the landlady? Finding Sophie dead? His hand punching the phone, the injury to the hand, suppuration?

5.The story of the brother, the addition, his wife and the car accident, her being an addict? The boy? Love for his son, the bonds, at home, the authorities warning him that the boy would be taken? The danger? His continuing to do drugs, collapsing? Going to the funeral of his mother? The issue of the money and the inheritance? Nick giving him all the money? Buying food, the bed for his son, buying drugs, the deal, selling the drugs in the street, the range of clients, Yellow, the former teacher and his advice? Getting Carsten to be a seller? With his son, the Zorro outfit, the boy’s drawings, taking him to the funeral? The phone calls? Carsten being an informer, the chase in the streets, the police catching him?

6.Prison, Nick and his lawyer, wanting to protect Ivan? Having to have the operation, the amputation of his hand? News of his brother, his brother’s suicide? With Martin, at the funeral, his weeping? Explaining Martin and his name – and the flashback to their baptising the baby?

7.Ivan, gross, mentally unstable, bashing in the street, Nick trying to help him? Ana as his sister? Nick going to Ana to warn him about the murder? Ivan and Nick’s taking his place to protect him?

8.Grim reality, the reasons, the effect, guilt and responsibility? An ending of hope? (And the title referring to the torture where a person’s head is held underwater for a long time – and this being a symbol of what was happening to the two brothers?