A Soap

Colour, 35 mm
Denmark, 2005, 104 min
Section: Horizons

Synopsis

32-year-old Charlotte has just split up with her boyfriend. She moves into a new flat, she lives among unpacked boxes and every night is spent with a different man. Her transsexual neighbour Ulrik, who lives one floor down with his dog, Miss Daisy, makes money as a prostitute and just waits – for visits from his neurotic mother, for the operation which will turn him into a woman, for his favourite TV soaps, for true love. Loneliness brings these two quite different characters together: the self-confident and sometimes callous Charlotte, and the desperately confused and defenceless Ulrik. The story of emotional and sexual chaos is divided into several chapters introduced by short black-and-white shots accompanied by a spoken commentary. The intimacy of the story is mirrored in the enclosed environment in which all the scenes unfold: the entire film is set only in the flats occupied by Charlotte and Ulrik.

About the director

Pernille Fischer Christensen (b. 1969, Denmark) studied at the National Film School in Copenhagen and in 1999 graduated with the film Indien, which was screened and awarded a year later at the Cannes IFF. Her three shorts The Girl Named Sister (Pigen som var soster, 1997), Honda Honda and Poesie album also won many awards, however, it was the short film Habibti My Love (Habibti min elskede, 2002) which brought her into the public gaze, winning Best Short Film at the Odense festival. The tragicomedy A Soap (2005) is her feature debut.