"The Oath" is a new work by the famous Danish director Billy August. Looking at the creative trajectory of this director who has been active in the film industry for more than 40 years, he has always paid full attention to the play, and in his own unique way, he weaves images and literature together, and expounds multiple brilliance from text to form in the adaptation. Adapted from the memoirs of the same name by the Danish poet Torkild Björweg, the film is a re-enactment of an important past in the history of Danish literature. The concise way of imagery and the hidden narrative contrast with the exciting and intricate core of the story, like two tight hands, in a structure where the center of gravity dances to both ends.
An important thread in the history of Danish literature
Torkild Björweg's sensational work tells the story of his relationship with Danish national treasure writer Karen Brixen. Karen's most famous works are Out of Africa and Babette's Feast, which were brought to the screen and won Oscars after her death.
In Karen's pact with Tokild, if one of the two dies, the other is responsible for telling the world about their contract. However, in the process of fulfilling the oath, there are twists and turns, and the dramatic tension of the film is gradually pulled to the limit, gender, ethics, art... The character situation and the character relationship of the mutual game that are gradually spiraling out of control are shown in various dimensions in this work.
"I promise that I will always guard you and stay here for you at all times." You can come to me at any time, or even throw stones at my window in desperate times. Most importantly, you have to pledge to always trust me and strive to be the artist you are destined to be. This oath not only runs through the entire film, but even breaks through the limitations of time and space, and becomes a very important historical clue in the history of Danish literature.
Tokild played the last important role in Karen's emotional life. When Karen met Tokild in 1948, she was 64 years old and suffering from tertiary syphilis and the ravages of aging and anxiety. And her relationship with the 30-year-old poet, though intense and draining, has always been a platonic presence.
Attracted by the witch-like magic of the older woman, Tokild threw herself into the "contract" she proposed, promising to give up everything for art.
However, this relationship of possession and exchange inevitably becomes a burden and encroachment. In many ways, The Oath is a tragic, inexplicable emotional story, but it is also a portrayal of the writer's interconnectedness and dominance in real life and artistic creation, especially exploring the dilemma of how far one is willing to go in realizing his full potential as an artist.
Dramatic Relationships: A Game of Multiple Existences
In The Oath, the core of the story seems to be Karen's vow with Torkild, but the real wrestlers between the two ends of the oath are not them, but Karen and the poet's wife, Gretel.
At the beginning of the film, Tokild has nothing, and after being chosen by Karen, the young poet and his wife are like being favored by the gods, and there is only the joy of imminent success in front of them. But gradually, Tokild was asked to break away from his old life—mainly his family. Karen proceeded from her own ideas and constantly stripped Tokild of all external influences, trying to restore him to a state of pure freedom. As a result, Tokild is more often like a red label on a tug-of-war rope, and each of his transformations is the feedback of a game between Karen and Gretel, two women, or rather, between Tokild's artistic pursuits and his original family life. The two female characters carry the situation and perspective of two women in that era of transformation, and in this female-dominated stage, the emotional power relationship is constantly unbalanced, and the desire and anxiety of each character can also be seen.
For Karen in her twilight years, her brilliant literary achievements still cannot eliminate her illness, loneliness and anxiety at that time, she needs Tokild as her spiritual companion and successor, so she uses her own ideas to sculpt and manipulate Brixon, constantly jumping between complex states such as guidance and dependence, contempt and appreciation, confrontation and synergy, in the process, Karen's self-projection is quite significant. For Gretel, as a librarian, she has a natural respect for literature, and as a wife, she naturally expects her husband to progress and succeed under the guidance of this literary superstar. However, this increasingly strange vow gradually kept the husband away from family life, and he lost control of his original relationship.
If the first half of the film's center of gravity is more inclined to a single-track operation, still predictably ominous, then in the second half of the film, the emotional intrusion of the third female character, Benedict, directly triggers an unexpected crisis elsewhere, and the accident itself is summoned by Karen, and eventually makes Karen uneasy and mocking, thus bringing a more complex and contradictory structure to the film. In the end, Benedict chooses to confess and leave, Gret attempts suicide, and Karen offers to lift the oath, and the story seems to develop into an irreparable situation. Especially when the young poet accepts the dissolution of the oath, Karen, in surprise and pain, takes out a shotgun and aims at him, and he calmly steps forward and leans over to kiss her on the lips – at this time, the film ushers in a truly quiet climax, a wonderful footnote to the two's long-standing complex relationship.
Writing Inside and Outside: Self and Cultural Awareness
In "The Oath", the self-existence inside and outside the writing is also an important theme explored in the film. There is a Danish term called "Jan t e l oven" and "Jan t es Law" in English, which describes the idea that we are equal in all aspects and should not think that we are superior just because we can do what others cannot. The question presented in The Oath of Faith is whether we should make sacrifices for greatness.
Thus, this film depicting an important fragment of Danish literary history challenges our cultural consciousness in a truly exciting way. It also explores the relationship between creation and the creator himself, i.e. whether the work needs the author or the author needs the work. The creator's search for this answer runs through the film, making the story have a nested metastructure, like carving its own sculpture, the author writes the work, and at the same time the work also writes the author, and the object of the writing tries to rewrite and rule the author with its own consciousness. The author is constantly wandering in the direction of writing inside and outside, while himself is deeply involved in them at the same time. Tokild is the god of the work, but at the same time he gives his life and becomes the martyr of the work.
In intense dramatic conflict, we see That Oath leads to a quiet accident: Gretel reads Karen's book in the hospital room after her suicide attempt, reads about her vitality and pain, and realizes that it is not Tokild who needs Karen, but Karen who needs him. This woman, who was once in a fierce game relationship, understands her "enemy" at this moment, as if at the junction of life and death, people are like naked ghosts, only to recognize each other, and all this is still achieved through sincere works and reading, and the meaning of writing is extended again. Therefore, at the end of the film, after the hurricane is a quiet and warm picture, Tokild and his wife and children playing on the beautiful lawn, this entangled and complex proposition finally ushered in a temporary sleep song.
Author: Lou Baiyang (Young Film Critic)
Editor: Zhou Minxian
Planner: Shao Ling