Film Blog of Submarino (2010)

In another film of Thomas Vinterberg, Submarine (Thomas Vinterberg, 2010), the violence of incompetent parents and child abuse also appears, which has a serious impact on the two brothers Nick and Ivan.

At the beginning of the film, Nick and Ivan are baptizing and naming their newborn brother, learning from the adults in the church. They are very young, but they take the responsibility of taking care of their brother. Before the mother appears in the story, the picture is beautiful and holy. It is a picture of three brothers living together. In the environment of lack of parental responsibility, The feelings between siblings will be more closely linked (Rey-salmon, 2018). Even if they need to take care of their brother and steal milk powder to feed their brother, they can get a trace of comfort and find fun to support them to live. Similarly, in the Festen (Thomas Vinterberg, 1998), Christian has endured such a hypocritical family for so many years, he can tolerate everything else. But his sister's death was devastating to him and touched his bottom line. Because from childhood, his siblings were the spiritual pillar of his repressed family. Their feelings exceeded those with his parents. So he blame himself and feel guilty because he couldn't protect his sister. He decided to do something that didn't conform to his previous rules.

In the submarine, after the mother broke into the plot, she brought home chaos, dirty and violent. The brothers needed to clean the floor wet by their mother's urine. The brother was beaten by his mother because he hid his mother's wine, and slapped several times. Nick's expression was very numb. Obviously, this has happened many times. Parents' behavior will undoubtedly affect children's behavior, just young generations habitual covered up hypocrisy for the appearance of the family in the Festen in the beginning (Wood, 1999). Nick also imitates his mother's drinking. His way of troubleshooting is to drink with his brother at an age when he shouldn't have drunk, listen rock music, indulge himself in the room, and cause his little brother's death due to neglect to take care of his brother. Essentially, the mother's dereliction of duty led to the death of the little brother, but the brothers blamed themselves for it all their lives. This is the same as the father who sexually assaulted his daughter without moral bottom line in the Festen, which has caused irreversible damage to whole family.

The two brothers sense of guilt since their adolescence makes them stay away from others, depressed, avoid too many emotional connections, and live like in the depths of the ocean without light (García Orso, 2011). Nick dreamed of his dead brother until he was in his thirties. Ivan also gave his child the same name as his dead little brother. Fortunately, the brothers resumed contact at their mother's funeral and redeemed each other after many years.

Word count: 474

Reference list:

García Orso, L. (2011). Submarino. Xipe Totek, 20(3), 289–290.

Kaufmann, M., Hald, B. (Producer), & Vinterberg, T. (Director). (1998). Festen [Motion Picture]. Denmark: Scanbox Danmark.

Kaufmann, M., Hald, B. (Producer), & Vinterberg, T. (Director). (2010). Submarino [Motion Picture]. Denmark: Mikado Films.

Rey-Salmon, C., & Adamsbaum, C. (2018). Child Abuse. [electronic resource]: Diagnostic and Forensic Considerations. Springer International Publishing.

Wood, R, P. (1999). Humble guests at the celebration: an interview with Thomas Vinterberg and Ulrich Thomsen. CineAction, pp. 47-54.