Maxance Vincent
Arguably the best movie to have premiered (so far) in the Cheval Noir section at the Fantasia International Film Festival, Kasper ‘Kalle’ Skovsbøl’s No Rest for the Wicked is a frequently devastating love story that isn’t afraid to explore a queer romance inside a charged setting where two lovers have to (literally and figuratively) move heaven and earth to be with each other. Skovsbøl’s approach to the blossoming romance between Baldur (Egor Venned) and Helge (Pilou Asbæk) is far more atmospheric than it is driven by plot or character, but the alluring, jaw-dropping images of the harsh landscapes of the Faroe Islands add so much texture to the resulting tragedy that will occur in several instances of this masterfully constructed folk horror tale.
Skovsbøl owes much to some of the greatest expressionist artists who ever lived, but his story is mostly confined to close quarters as Baldur develops an affection that transcends friendship for Helge. Of course, this being the 1860s, queer romances were shunned by the devout Christian community, and the two had to hide that something was going on. While the movie does take its time to get to an inciting incident that shifts our perception of the characters, the patient build-up is necessary for us to understand the film’s setting and how it will, most importantly, explore the community’s relationship with spirituality once they’ve realized that perverting the essence of scripture will only result in more violence and bloodshed.
For Kasper, the vampire is metaphorical, not literal, which keeps No Rest for the Wicked always floating between nightmares and reality, never knowing when the line is fully blurred, especially when the Danish filmmaker casts Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson as the person who will inhabit Helge’s spirit when mortality is involved. To say both Asbæk and Jóhannesson have a striking resemblance is the understatement of the decade, so much so that this critic thought the former was playing twins (since one has a defined beard) until the end credits appeared and I went, “Wait, wait a second.” Turns out, I wasn’t the only one who thought similarly, and it seems to be an intentional choice by its filmmaker to continuously blur the line between the protagonists’ realities and the spirits that inhabit its landscapes.
It also has much to say about the corrupting power religion may hold among individuals. While not the film’s thesis, Kalle spends much time showing what happens when humans attempt to play God while fundamentally misunderstanding the core tenets of Christianity. Driving a stake in a person’s heart will not stop them from coming back to life if they have unfinished business, and for the protagonists, nothing will be right in the world until the two spend the rest of their lives together for eternity, even if it means causing bloodshed for eternal peace. The horrors of the film are far more expressionistic than I imagined, even as its absorbing visual language can veer into murky territory, especially at night.
There is, however, a genuine sense of tension felt between Helge and Baldur, and none of it would have worked if both Venned and Asbæk didn’t give their all. In fact, at the time of this writing, Asbæk won the Outstanding Performance Award for the festival, with the Youngjoon Suh-presided jury stating that “Every movement, every silence, every knot tied and glance exchanged reveals a soul shaped by freedom, isolation, and the courage to embrace his own identity.” There isn’t a better way to describe this immensely vulnerable turn from someone not usually known, at least to Western audiences, from tapping into subtle inflections to make us feel a wide array of strong and open emotions. It’s a performance that mostly thrives on silence, because words can’t express the boundless love both Baldur and Helge feel, as the driving force behind No Rest for the Wicked’s evocative viewing experience.
When the movie does enter vampiric territory, it slightly loses the forward momentum Kalle had built up earlier, but the horror laid bare is so well-executed that it almost doesn’t matter. Here’s a movie that is unapologetically itself and knows how to progress to a predictable, yes, but still sobering conclusion through the prism of supernatural horror, while also discussing pressing issues that still persist to this day, in an era where our conception of religion is as distorted as it was in the past. No Rest for the Wicked might take a bit of time to get going, but the resulting feeling one gets while plunged is still powerful enough for it to be one of the best films to have had a world premiere at this year’s Fantasia, where its final week will hopefully be a memorable one.
SCORE: ★★★1/2
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