Out of Fantasia Film Festival, Kasper Kalle’s No Rest for the Wicked adapts the 1884 short story, Manor, written by German author and out gay man Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, and spins a beautiful and tragic, stunning and despairing, and poetic and terrifying love story. Kalle, who co-wrote the script with Rasmus Birch, examines the vilification of queerness in 1880s Denmark, specifically on the Faroe Islands, and how hateful thinking leads to nothing but ruin and the loss of humanity. Through such a bleak setting, Kalle adeptly navigates the rigid beliefs of the time and reminds the audience that queerness is not something needing to be fixed. Desperation to love and be loved feeds into Kalle’s earnest, heart-rending story about two men who can’t help what their heart so desires.
Baldur (Egor Venned) lives with his mother Ásla (Sofia Nolsøe) in a small shack in the Faroe Islands. They struggle to make ends meet, but it’s a humble life of hard work and dedication that seems satisfactory enough. While out boating one afternoon, Baldur runs into a stranger named Helge (Pilou Asbæk) caught in a dense fog and shipwrecked upon jagged rock along the shoreline. Baldur abandons his boat to help and brings Helge back to his cottage for warmth, food, and dry clothing. Ásla welcomes him in and gives him a pair of her late husband’s trousers.
It was apparent at first glance that Baldur and Helge fancy each other. “It must have been very lonely to be gay in the Faroe Islands in 1862,” Kalle shares in a press statement. That sentiment courses throughout the film, from knotted roots to a blossoming gay romance. Despite their quick and hot love for one another, Helge plans to sign up on the next ship that floats by. But Baldur isn’t about to let, perhaps, the only true love he’s ever known slip through his grasp. He signs up, too. The following morning, Ásla is distraught over this news and forces Baldur into a difficult decision. Baldur and Helge’s relationship becomes fraught with complications, leading to monstrous results that could tear them irreparably apart.
No Rest for the Wicked takes a somber, reflective tone to folk horror. It’s much in the same vein as Nightsiren and The Devil’s Bath, bottled ruminations on the destruction of innocence. Kasper Kalle approaches the source material with a delicate hand and a rich understanding of queer relationships. Venned and Asbæk upset the emotional equilibrium of the audience through soul-drenching performances that carry the weight of a thousand anvils. Once that balance is tampered with, there’s no resetting until the credits roll.
Kasper Kalle’s No Rest for the Wicked clobbers and guts the viewer every step of the way. Once a nasty rainstorm ravages the islands, there’s no turning back the dial. The film effectively uses its location, making the suffocating isolation even more imposing and deadly. By the very last frame, Kalle has employed every storytelling trick to deliver his own powerful take on queerness and what it means to be alive.
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