Getting to bed unharmed can be rather difficult after a night of heavy drinking. A fact that the Norwegian short film Sunday Mornings is a clear proof of.

The film chronicles a very drunk woman’s long journey from front door to bed. Sunday Mornings is directed by the Norwegian video artist Jannicke Låker, who is a Berlin resident and who has exhibited her works in large cities all over the world.

– Jannicke Låker, how did you come up with the idea for Sunday Mornings, is it autobiographical?

– The incident with the dress is taken from the morning after New Year’s Eve 2005, where I woke up on the floor in front of my bed with my tailor-made dress, way too tight by the way, stuck over my head.

– Under what circumstances did it come into being?

– My budget for the film was 4.000 euro. I paid the actress and her trip from Norway (it’s made in Berlin), for the makeup artist and some material. Apart from that, the film was dependent on the voluntary work of my colleagues, who are also video artists. I borrowed the flat from my friend Jan Dietrich, who apart from owning a beautiful apartment also has a talent for acting and participates in my short film Playing Dead (where he plays dead). He also plays the role as an unpleasant homeless guy in Ablaze, a project I’m working on now.

– What were your intentions with making Sunday Mornings?

– My first idea with Sunday Mornings was to make something ugly in an elegant way. With a distant camera and a slow pace, I wanted to describe how a drunk, lonely woman in the end of her 30’s navigates through her big, classic apartment in the beautiful morning light. I wanted to expose a situation we don’t like to talk about. A situation most of us in the West (at least the North) know, but don’t want to deal with. The taboo moments.

– The ugliness in the hours after the party and the anxiety a blackout can cause the next day. Or like in my last film As You Read This (in Nordic Panorama 2011) that chronicles the character Eva’s last three days before she takes her own life. These situations keep appearing as creative material, the periods in life that we want to forget about. But concealing these moments is like holding your breath. It’s painful and unbearable.

– Another issue I wanted to expose in Sunday Mornings is another taboo, loneliness. It’s painful but it’s also shameful.

JUMPED FOR THREE DAYS
– Are you inspired by any specific artists or works?

– I’m inspired by performance art mostly from the 70’s, contemporary theater, and filmmakers like Varda, Akermann, Herzog, and many more. But the one that made me start working with videoart was the American artist Bruce Naumann. When I saw his video installation with a jester jumping up and down, shouting “no, no, no” (which is also the title of the work), I made a version of it with myself in front of the camera. I was jumping for three days. The whole experience was very powerful.

– What was the greatest challenge about making this film, artistically as well as practically?

– The most challenging with making the film was the lack of time. I only had the actress, Marika Enstad, here for one day. We started in the morning at nine and she took a taxi to the airport at four in the afternoon. Otherwise it was actually an easy film to make.

– I had great people with me and my vision was very clear. I knew how I wanted the camera (we had run through that on beforehand) and I knew how to direct Marika Enstad. She understood the role completely and had no fear of the physical part. And very importantly, she understood my humour. I edited the film in two different versions, one where the woman is in picture all the time and one – like the version on the DVD – where she leaves the picture. I learned a lot in the process.

DISTINCTIVELY NORDIC
– In what way are you using humour in Sunday Mornings?

– The actress in my installation video Running Woman, Lore Calvies, told me that my way of working is similar to comedy. You don’t not work intellectually, it’s not in the head, it’s physical, immediate and authentic. Maybe that’s what makes Sunday Mornings funny. But the humor also lies in the contrasts I described before. The slow tempo, the morning light, the elegant flat, and in this setting an ugly situation where a woman – nor particularly elegant – is running wild.

– What can one achieve with comedy that the tragedy is not capable of?

– When you use humour, you can be much more critical without being personally aggressive. And it’s easier to work with taboos and difficult questions.

– Do you think that there exists a particular Nordic humour?

– I think my humor is particularly Nordic, with focus on embarrassing, difficult and unpleasant intimate situations.

SHARP TONGUES

– Sunday Mornings is dedicated to the single women of Berlin. Why?

– The film is about loneliness, but the dedication is in a way a joke, because I too am single as are many of my female friends. But it is also serious, because the single life and loneliness pulls you out to the parties and bars, and as the time passes three am you keep sitting there, not wanting to go home. Unless you meet someone.

– What do you think of the current state of Norwegian film?

– I live in Berlin and I don’t get to see many Norwegian films. But through my work at the art academies, I meet a lot of students with sharp tongues and some of them make really good video works. And I also liked the winner in Grimstad this year (Mariken Halles No Sex Just Understand, which is also available on Funny Films of the North, ed.)!
 

By Mads Suldrup and Thomas S. Sejersen / Filmmagasinet Ekko

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