Frederikke Aspöck looks into the cracks in married life

Winner of Premier Prix of the Cinéfondation in 2004 for her short film Happy Now, the Danish film-maker heads the list of Special Screenings with her first feature film, Labrador (Out Of Bounds), about the fragility of the couple and human relationships.

Oskar (Jakob Eklund) and Stella (Stephanie Leon), the parents-to-be of a first child, are an outwardly happy couple. They decide to visit Nathan (Carsten Bjørnlund), the young wife’s father. As the days go by, discord begins to appear between Oskar and his father-in-law, a lonely man who nurtures a symbiotic relationship with his daughter.

A family reunion on a small remote island that turns into a confrontation between an obstructive father and his son-in-law. A couple moving apart under the stress, slowly sinking into deadlock as they get ready to celebrate the birth of their first child. For her return to the Official Selection, Danish director Frederikke Aspöck once again turns her camera on the dramas of married life and the family.

This theme already underpinned the plot of her earlier movie, a short film selected at Cannes seven years ago which went on to win the Premier prix of the Cinéfondation. In Happy Now, the life of an ordinary American family on vacation on the beach is disrupted when Carole, the mother, yields to the temptation of a fleeting affair with a lifeguard.

In Labrador (Out Of Bounds), the Danish film-maker enjoys opposing contrasting cinematic genres (drama and comedy), landscapes (town and country) and characters (Nathan and Oskar). “The stresses in the film, created by these oppositions, underline how fragile and lonely people’s lives are when there is nobody you can trust”, she explains. We note that the movie is in competition for the Prix de la Caméra d’or.

B.P.

The film will be screened at 5.15pm on Friday 13 May in the Salle du Soixantième.