Short of the Week

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Drama Jesper Quistgaard

Heavyweight

After realizing that his 6-year-old son thinks he is working as a police officer punishing villains, a burdened parking attendant feels inspired to use his infamous profession to turn vigilante.

Play
Drama Jesper Quistgaard

Heavyweight

After realizing that his 6-year-old son thinks he is working as a police officer punishing villains, a burdened parking attendant feels inspired to use his infamous profession to turn vigilante.

Heavyweight

Directed By Jesper Quistgaard
Made In Denmark

Director Jesper Quistgaard and writer Nicklas Clark stun us with their deceptively complex film Heavyweight. There is not a single moment in this film that wastes narrative potential. Technically the film is cleverly understated with a thematically appropriate and subtle cloudy look and calculatedly smooth editing. It is no wonder Heavyweight with all its profound intricacies, has showcased at Odense International Film Festival, Interfilm Berlin, Miami Short Film Festival, and Edinburgh Short Film Festival, to name a few.

Quistgaard and Clark tell us the greatest difficulty was in the script itself. They went through 20 versions of the script before they were satisfied with moving forward on production. “Writing the film proved difficult due to all the different aspects we wanted to incorporate in the film which weren’t naturally connected, and was hard to get around in such a short amount of time. Also we felt we dealt a lot with abstract, inner psychological themes which we didn’t want to express directly in dialogue. Therefore we felt we needed a physical connection between the action taking place in the main character’s private and professional life, so we finally came up with the superhero-plastic-figure, Jack, to communicate some of the development in the story, and to put direct pressure on the main character whenever his son is physically absent.” It is clear with both their statement and the final product, much careful thought was put into the making of this film. While the film has a distinct cautiousness in the narrative, it also carries a unique rawness in its willingness to play with roles and redefine narrative expectations.

There is a certain clarity in the distinctions of perceptions in terms of how we perceive each character, the perceived role of each character, how others perceive the character, and how we ought to perceive the character. Each character has a strong identity in every circumstance he is presented with. By strong I don’t mean powerful in the traditional sense, rather, I mean strong in that their role within the hierarchy is clearly defined regardless of their position. While we watch the film we can, at a distance, very easily draw both the personal and social boundaries relating to each character. Although we can certainly follow the story along with great ease, there is a great and perfectly woven complexity that allows us analyze the film and all its implications.