Liebe am Fjord - Abschied von Hannah (2012)

The writer Henrik Agdestein, a mainstay of Norwegian literature, has withdrawn from people even more than his already reclusive nature would suggest during his wife Hannah’s long and serious illness. He has never had a particularly good relationship with his children, Leif, Laura, and Sonja. When they meet at their mother’s funeral, old conflicts resurface. His daughter Sonja is a teacher and arrives with her husband and their two children. Laura, who works as a police officer and has always had a good relationship with her father, comes on her motorcycle. Henrik’s son Leif, who has become Norway’s youngest justice minister, arrives with his bodyguard, Ulf Strahnge. The relationship between Henrik and Leif is especially strained: they parted after an argument and have not spoken for a long time. Leif believes it has something to do with his being attracted to men. The welcome is frosty, especially since shortly beforehand the writer drove away Mrs. Bornedahl, who had worked for the Agdesteins for 30 years. The funeral does not turn out as the children had hoped for their mother. A major reason is that Henrik Agdestein angrily confronts the mourners waiting at the cemetery, asking whether they cannot accept that he wanted a gathering for family only. By contrast, Henrik gets along very well from the outset with Ulf Strahnge, who is intelligent and deeply empathetic and, like Henrik and Hannah, appreciates Satie’s music. Henrik even lets him see into his soul. All three children blame themselves for having visited their mother so rarely and repeatedly postponing plans to see her. It is a bitter realization. Matters between the father and his children escalate again over Hannah Agdestein’s gravestone, and culminate in Henrik slapping his son after Leif suggests that their mother might have become ill because of Henrik. Since Agdestein is too caught up in his grief, he orders his children out of the house after this confrontation. Later, when Laura seeks to get close to him, he tells her for the first time how he came to freeze his foot at the age of eight: it was because of his own father’s cruelty, as he showed no compassion even after the amputation. To Leif’s astonishment, Mrs. Bornedahl tells him that his father collected and kept everything about him that appeared in the newspapers, and followed all his speeches and every television appearance. In a conversation with Ulf Strahnge, who is not only his bodyguard but also his friend, Leif confides that he is convinced his father has despised him ever since learning about his homosexuality. His mother, by contrast, had simply taken him silently in her arms when he came out to her. On his friend’s advice, Leif decides to try speaking to his father once more. He finds three farewell letters and a missing bullet in the house. Terrified, he goes to the fjord, where he finds his father holding a pistol. His father asks him to leave him alone for a little while and to keep what has just happened between the two of them. It is the day the children are holding a memorial for their mother at the local inn where they are staying, to which everyone who wanted to be there has been invited. They are also putting their mother’s photographs on display. To everyone’s surprise, Henrik shows up too. He reads from his latest book, and everyone can see that his words are a declaration of love to his wife; the profound love that bound him to Hannah is palpable. At the end, he tells his children how proud he is of each of them. Sonja is worried that her father will be left all alone when they leave again, since Henrik’s abrasive manner has turned the whole village against him. But that worry proves unfounded: Henrik’s speech has changed things for the villagers, too, and Mrs. Bornedahl returns to help him around the house again.