The discovery of one’s hidden desires can be a slippery albeit enlightening slope. And perhaps “hidden” isn’t quite the correct term. Freud said repressed but that isn’t quite the issue here either. Simply undiscovered. And, though I assure you this will be my only moment of gay-boy-gone-gushy, it is hard not to be swept by a trailer that plays Robyn’s “With Every Heartbeat.”
But this is what the Swedish film Kiss Me (Kyss Mig) is all about: undiscovered desires that, repressed or not, surface at the most strangely inopportune times and come with such a force that it is impossible to deny.
Meet Mia (Ruth Vega Fernandez), your future matriarch—or at least, she thinks she’s heading down that road. Deeply attached to her mother that has since passed, she finds herself torn between the dichotomy of happiness/sadness while having to witness her father fall in love and marry another woman.
For children, it is difficult to understand how someone can move on and yet, when they are adults, have to face the rationality that it is in fact healthier for that parent to indeed move on. Mia struggles to find balance between those two poles, especially when discovering that there is little to like about her father’s new family, particularly her new stepmom’s daughter, Frida (Liv Mjönes).
They are antithetical to one another: Mia is rigid, proper, and engaged to a man she deeply loves while Frida lacks pretense entirely, moves more with the flow of the day than the plans of the mind, and doesn’t relegate herself to definitions.
So it should not be shocking that, when Mia is forced to deal with her new family sans father, it is amongst a forest of wide-eyed does gawking at the two as they, seemingly from nowhere, kiss each other. Removed from the controlling, man-made comfort of home, Mia is forced to face her most innate instincts face-to-face with that which she claims she is the opposite of.
“You can be attracted to more than one person,” Frida softly says.
Mia’s reaction is clearly defensive: “‘Attracted’? I’m not like you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
The calmness of Frida is alarming in contrast to Mia’s outburst, for Frida knows who she is but the questioning of Mia’s own identity creates a schism.
To delve further into the nuances that grace this film—such as the look Mia and Frida share in a car while Mia’s fiance, Tim, boasts of the responses about their wedding reception via email—will disservice any viewer. All that needs to be said is that, simply put, this is a beautifully crafted film that patiently explores two people discovering one another and not quite knowing where the road will take them.
Alexandra-Therese Keining’s direction—patient, long shots that lack excessive movement—is paired perfectly Ragna Jorming’s immensely beautiful cinematography, as the story’s slow moving, deeply focused tale is complemented with the monotonous beauty that is Sweden: with its vast whiteness and sublimely dark forests, it is the perfect setting to explore one’s undiscovered desires.
****
The 2012 QFilms Festival will occur September 14, 15, and 16. Kiss Me will be shown on Sunday, September 16 at 6:30pm at the Art Theatre, located at 2025 E. 4th Street.
For the complete lineup of the films playing at this year’s QFilms, click here.
For more information about the festival, visit www.qfilmslongbeach.com. Passes and tickets are available through the link provided. Submissions for this year’s festival are closed but 2013 submissions will be accepted beginning October 15 via www.withoutabox.com.