There are almost enough queer-themed films in this year’s MIFF program to make up an entire spotlight program, but perhaps the most unique is Brotherhood, an edgy drama about two Danish neo-Nazis whose uneasy camaraderie gradually develops into a passionate but forbidden love. Winner of the Best Film Award at the 2009 Rome Film Festival, Nicolo Donato’s debut feature aims to be a gritty and confronting story about racism, gang violence and illicit romance in an unwelcoming environment. Sadly, due in no small part to the poorly developed screenplay co-written by Donato and Rasmus Birch, it falls well short of the mark.
In the opening scene of Brotherhood, neo-Nazi skinhead Jimmy (David Dencik) is seen luring a young gay man into an all-too-brief liaison in a darkened park. “You’re beautiful,” he tells the youth, in the brief moment before his fellow skinheads attack the young man and beat him senseless.
Next we meet Lars (Thure Lindhardt), a handsome, 20-something soldier who has just left the army under a cloud after he (allegedly) drunkenly propositioned several of his subordinates. Angry and aimless without the army’s structured lifestyle, Lars finds himself accidentally attending the local neo-Nazi cell’s recruitment meeting, but he has no time for the far-right movement. “I’m not some psycho or a loser who beats up people,” he sneers.
But soon, despite having only the thinnest of motivations for doing so, in a move that smacks of plot-driven expediency, Lars attends a beach party thrown by the Nazi group. Here we are introduced – in a particularly unsubtle way – to Jimmy’s hotheaded younger brother Patrick (Morten Holst), who will come to play a key role later in the film.
Because of his bravery and intelligence, Lars is soon fast-tracked for full membership of the Nazi group, ahead of Patrick, who is naturally angered at being overlooked for the honour. Jimmy too is angered by the favoured treatment Lars has received, and in an effort to reconcile the two, the group’s ersatz leader Michael Tykke aka Fatty (Nicolas Bro) orders Lars and Jimmy to work together: Lars is to help Jimmy renovate a beach house owned by the party, and Jimmy is to help coach Lars in Nazi ideology.
Soon the simmering tension between the pair explodes – not in violence, but in a deep and all-consuming passion. But unknown to them both, Patrick suspects their secret.
While the film wins points for not seeking to explain away its characters’ racist ideologies through simplistic psychology, it also fails to develop the relationship between Jimmy and Lars in a believable way. The men display surprisingly little caution or tact despite the unwelcoming milieu in which their relationship plays out, and for two allegedly closeted, presumably self-hating gay or bisexual men, they fall far too quickly into a traditional romantic entanglement.
The under-developed screenplay aside, Brotherhood is an effective although unimaginative three-act drama. The leads give solid performances, especially David Dencik as the conflicted skinhead Jimmy, and Donato – best known in his native Denmark as a director of music videos and commercials – has a strong grasp of dramatic contrast. In one key scene at a skinhead concert where the sexual tension between Lars and Jimmy is building to dangerous levels, a gentle acoustic guitar track plays on the soundtrack, starkly but tenderly contrasting with the homosocial violence of the mosh pit played out the screen. As a visual representation of the contrasting drives of love and hate, loyalty and loathing, sex and violence, it is breathtakingly effective.
Unfortunately some of the other creative decisions Donato has made are less impressive. A largely hand-held camera sacrifices imaginative shots for intimate close-ups, to poor effect; and the subdued palette of the film is all too obvious a representation of the character’s empty lives.
Dramatically, Brotherhood is far from perfect, but as an original addition to the genre of forbidden romances, and as a cultural curiosity – it’s already been dubbed ‘Brokeback Nazi’ – it will definitely be of interest to discerning MIFF-goers.
Brotherhood (dir. Nicolo Donato, Denmark, 2009)
Stars: David Dencik, Thure Lindhardt, Morten Holst, Nicolas Bro & Signe Egholm Olsen
Producer: Per Holst
Original Music: Simon Brenting & Jesper Mechlenburg
Cinematography: Laust Trier-Mørch
Film Editing: Bodil Kjærhauge
Melbourne International Film Festival, July 22 – August 8
www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au
This review first appeared on Arts Hub on Tues July 6th 2010.
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