MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY FILM INQUIRER

Of the consequences in cinema from traditional applications of the gaze, of which there are many theories but the foremost has been Laura Mulvey’s to do with the male gaze, one archetype continues to plague. While no doubt dripping in intrigue, Copenhagen Does Not Exist (2023) attempts to spin a retelling of the story of the missing mysterious girl, but squanders that in itself, as the finished product can best be described as a Mulvey satire.

Part of this year’s Scandinavian Film Festival, Copenhagen Does Not Exist is a psychological thriller directed by Martin Skovbjerg. It follows Sander (Jonas Holst Schmidt) after the disappearance of his girlfriend Ida, (Angela Bundalovic), as he volunteers to be isolated to an apartment and questioned by Ida’s father Porath and brother Viktor. From there, we learn about the unconventional nature of Ida and Sander’s relationship, in which the two became isolated from each other and others.

Written by Eskil Vogt, the same screenwriter as The Worst Person in the World (2021), I had high hopes as I headed into the film about what was advertised: to reflect the nature of relationships. But what was experienced was instead a film ripe for the theories of Mulvey, where I longed to see Ida as more than a mere object for Sander’s subject.

There is little doubt about the film’s craft. There are exquisite choices made stylistically, from an opening montage of Ida through Sander’s eyes, to the omniscient presence of an observing other, with Sander being filmed through doorways, the camera panning to him, from actions like waking up to walking towards the window. Sander is also filmed by Ida’s brother during his interrogation over Ida’s disappearance, and there is one wonderful choice made to have the audience looking towards Sander’s back as a television reflects back what Viktor is filming. It is a fascinating choice to be almost a voyeur into Sander’s brain, to understand what has come to pass, but the power of these choices is undermined when one comes, or rather fails to come, to understand Ida.

Ida is difficult to understand, as she doesn’t appear as a character, but rather a figure, a mirage of a real person. Whatever the film’s intent, Ida is a pure object of Sander’s own projection. She is only seen through his eyes, and this is how we meet her in the film’s opening montage, which features Sander watching her watch a movie, buy a book, and in a grocery store with her skirt hiked up.

I hesitate to use this phrase, as I wonder if it has lost all meaning, but Ida appears to be a modified version of the manic pixie dream girl trope, if the dream girl’s appeal were not only her quirky past times but also meekness and disability. Her mania and mental illness seem to only add to her appeal for Sander: her implied eating disorder makes her meek, which even others suggest is enjoyed by him, and her body is emphasised in ways that offer no agency on her end. In one scene, Sander cuts Ida’s hair without pushback. She just sits in the bath as he does so.

“I just watched her”, Sander says when interrogated by her father. When asked if he noticed her fading away, Sander replies, “Ida didn’t like to be monitored”. And yet monitored she is, monitored in both the film and her relationship. The relationship itself began with this active watching on Sander’s part, something which he admits to too: “She couldn’t see me, but I could see her”. It is the male gaze in action, in both the theoretical and culturally misappropriated sense of the term.

Copenhagen Does Not Exist does not come across as a love story or complex character study. I simply left it sick. This film comes across as three men trying to understand who this woman is, with no agency provided to her by the filmmakers, or at least a proper stare back. Her tragedies, including a pregnancy, lack of eating, and unambiguous depressive state, not just seem to rob Ida of any actual complexity, but, in turn, simplify this story and waste its potential. The twist ending, despite whatever aims the filmmakers may have had, fails to have an impact, reinforcing a lot of the fears I had about the film when it began. This film, about watching, fails to add anything new, and instead reinforces a lot of what has already been done and critiqued, with little self-awareness on its own part.

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The Scandinavian Film Festival is currently running in Melbourne with encore sessions until August 6th. As well as in Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, and Byron Bay until August 9th. This review was produced in collaboration with Farrago Magazine.