IFFI 2024 | ‘Synkefri’ (‘Unsinkable’) movie review: A gripping Scandinavian drama on the fallout of a maritime tragedy

A still from ‘Unsinkable’
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

For those who grew up around the coast, a harbour or a fishing hamlet, a windy shot of fishermen loading fish onto their trawlers is enough to remember what that wind feels like or what those men carry in their hearts every time they set sail into the ocean. In the sleepy Danish harbour city of Hirtshals, the wind is not just an intrinsic and comforting element, but also a terrifying reminder of a painful past.

The year is 1981. Teenager Henrik (Sylvester Espersen Byder), along with his family, watches his beloved father Rasmus (Anders Brink Madsen), a rescue operations head, speak on the tele about the RF2, a state-of-the-art rescue boat that has been tested to be practically unsinkable. For Rasmus and his wife Iben (Johanne Louise Schmidt), Henrik and their pre-teen daughter Sofie are everything. Henrik works with his uncle Bo Tang (Lars Torpp Thomsen) at the harbour during the day, and in the evening, loiters around drinking beer with his best friend and partner-in-crime, Claus (Elias Budde Christensen).

A still from ‘Unsinkable’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

During a warm family dinner with Bo Tang and his wife Lissy (Sofie Torp), a distress message calls Rasmus to action — a boat with Claus on board has sunk, and Rasmus takes his RF2 on a rescue mission. While Henrik and Iben wait with their hearts in their hands, Bo Tang, manning the tower’s microphone, relays a piece of information that permanently changes the lives of the Rasmus family and the fate of Hirtshals: both Claus’ boat and Rasmus’ RF2 had sunk with no survivors. Henrik has just lost his father and his best friend, and to make matters worse, Rasmus is called responsible for why the unsinkable boat sank.

Competing for the ICFT UNESCO Gandhi Medal at the 55th International Film Festival of India, Scandinavian filmmaker and Hirtshals homeboy Christian Andersen’s Unsinkable (or Synkefri in Danish) unfolds episodically. It is a neatly written and conceived drama based on a real incident that claimed the lives of nine men in 1981. Using sounds and background scores to underline the panic of an impending disaster and its aftermath, Andersen almost makes us party to Henrik, his family, and Claus’ mother Silje, as they ride the waves of grief.

As much as it is about a homage to the victims of the tragedy, Unsinkable is also an expose of the wounds negligence can fester. The conflict of the film unfolds when Henrik sees Bo Tang’s recording of RF2’s capsizing test at the harbour — a video that urges Henrik on a journey of his own, a journey everyone around him, including the fishermen, Bo Tang, and his mother, warns him not to venture into.

Bo Tang and Henrik in a still from ‘Unsinkable’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

With well-charted characters and capable performers — watch out for Byder’s reaction when Silje asks Henrik about Claus at the beach — Unsinkable anchors on the emotions of its world-weary teenage protagonist. The interpersonal dynamics are wonderfully woven; Iben is as clueless as Henrik in handling grief, but her negligence of the turmoil he is undergoing and where it takes them has something to say to all of us. What also works in its favour is the good old Scandinavian school of humour butting in to provide some levity; like little Sofie jokingly comparing the weight distribution of a boat to that of a person’s body, or Bo Tang’s jab at Henrik on finding the clitoris of a woman, which comes at a very pivotal moment.

However, you wonder if Andersen’s conviction dips a few notches here and here. For instance, when you learn that Rasmus drowned in the shipwreck, you naturally think back at the shot of Rasmus and Iben seeking each other’s warmth under the water in their swimming pool — the only scene in the film to show the couple’s love for each other. Fearing you wouldn’t make the connection, Andersen shows Iben reminiscing about the swim at a specific instance. You wonder if the placement could’ve been better or subtler, or if certain things could have been left for an audience to ponder and draw parallels.

Pockets of silence punctuate the film, but you wish the film let the characters breathe more in that silence. Not a single beat puts you off the world Andersen has built, but you wish you were allowed to sit with Henrik in silence, and not just see him kick bottles of beer at his hangout spot with Claus. This is a young boy who is broken into a million pieces, precisely the reason why an audience aware of what that does to you, wishes to know who Henrik really is. After all, isn’t drama but a reflection of what we become in the quiet of our solitude?

Synkefri was screened at the ongoing 55th International Film Festival of India