Danish director Marianna Blicher graces the Glasgow film festival with her off-kilter tragi-comedy ‘Miss Viborg’, centred on Solvej, a 61- year old recluse who strikes up an unlikely friendship with her 17-year old neighbour Kate.
From the offset the film does an excellent job of setting up the strange world of Viborg, the small sleepy Danish town inhabited by an equally bizarre population. There is a colourful candy coating to the visuals coupled with a lush score, particularly a central accordion motif, which does so much to conjure its unique tone.
A lot of the strangeness stems from the central friendship between the two women. Both suffer from eating disorders, Solvej overeats, Kate under eats. Both are victims of a particular social circumstance that has forced them to remain in a council flat in this small sparsely populated town, Kate relies on benefits whilst Solvej sells her prescribe pain medication, dishing it out on her mobility scooter. Both yearn for a larger world outside of Viborg, Solvej is saving up to get a timeshare in Spain whilst Kate dreams of reuniting with her estrange father in Frankfurt.
“From the offset the film does an excellent job of setting up the strange world of Viborg, the small sleepy Danish town inhabited by an equally bizarre population.”
The central performance from Ragnhild Kaasgaard as Solvej is wonderful. She does some really good hobbling acting, a strange compliment I know, and it is refreshing to see a film about an overweight older woman that is not presenting her as pathetic or solely victimising her (Darren Aronofsky take note). The film also does a great job at communicating a lot of character through very small, often strange, social interactions, with a particular moment where Solvej goes on a date with an older trucker in the town playing out wonderfully.
The film does, however, have some glaring issues. Most of which stems from the final act that sort of falls apart rather quickly and resulting in a final moment of unearned sincerity. There is also a couple bits of colour correcting that looks terrible with shots not matching at all. Worst of all theres a soulful slow rendition of 500 miles by The Proclaimers that I wish I could have seen in a Glasgow audience just to feel the tangible second hand embarrassment. Despite these glaring issues Miss Viborg remains oddball enough to keep you on side, if not slightly warily.
