Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Viljar Bøe
Starring: Freddy Singh, Julie Abrahamsen, Louise Waage Anda, Viggo Solomon
Norwegian filmmaker Viljar Bøe has spent much of his nascent career using the body horror sub-genre to examine psychological conditions that manifest themselves in extreme physical ways. His breakout festival hit Good Boy was focussed on a man who believes himself to be a dog and dresses, "furry" style, in a canine costume while walking on all fours. He's followed that film up with Above the Knee, which features a protagonist suffering from Body Integrity Dysphoria (BID), a real life condition that leads people to believe they can only be their true selves by becoming physically disabled.
Co-writer Freddy Singh plays Amir, who believes that his left leg must be removed for him to carry on with his life. He's kept this a secret from his cohabiting girlfriend Kim (Julie Abrahamsen), sneaking down to a secret room in the basement where he paints self-portraits of himself as a one-legged man in a wheelchair.
A TV news report on BID leads Amir to seek out Rikke (Louise Waage Anda), a young woman who wishes she were blind. Posing as a reporter, Amir probes Rikke for information, but she sees through his ruse and immediately pegs him as a kindred spirit. As the two bond, Amir starts pulling sickies from work while telling Kim he's doing overtime in the office, all so he can spend time with the one person who understands him. Agreeing to help each other achieve their desire to become disabled, Amir and Rikke set about planning how to remove their offending limbs and organs in a way that makes it appear like an accident.
Bøe employs onscreen text that counts down the days to "the accident," implying that Amir will indeed go ahead with his grisly plan in some form. This countdown doesn't quite create suspense however, as we're never entirely sure whether we want Amir to go ahead with his self-butchery or not. The movie wrestles with the increasingly hot topic of bodily autonomy by making it clear that Amir genuinely believes he would be better off without his left leg. As a society, do we step in and stop such people from seeing through their plans or do we allow them the freedom to treat their own bodies as they wish?
The movie approaches this thorny issue in a very mature, very Scandinavian manner, and it ultimately appears to come down on one side of the argument, though I won't reveal which. It would have been very easy to play this scenario for cheap laughs, but Bøe is determined that we take his angst-ridden protagonist seriously. Singh's quietly tortured performance ensures we garner sympathy, if not empathy, for his condition, and it's clear that Amir is as tortured by his inability to confess to his feelings as he is by his psychological troubles.
The film is frustrating in parts due to Bøe concealing certain details. It's only in the second half that we're made privy to an important piece of information that makes us understand why the people in Amir's life walk on eggshells in his presence. Had the film let us know about this detail from the off it would have made the first half a less puzzling experience. A late turn into almost Fatal Attraction territory when Rikke becomes obsessive about Amir feels out of place, diverting a relatively grounded drama into more melodramatic territory. But for the most part this is a sensitive and thoughtful examination of a rarely explored psychological condition, one that raises questions over how far we allow people to go to appease the voices in their heads.
Above the Knee is on UK/ROI VOD from September 8th.
