From Above

Filmmaker Nicolaj Kopernikus delivers a tender yet righteous tale of perspective in his short film From Above, in which he stars as Morten - a downtrodden father and artist whose estrangement with his daughter has left him bereft of dignity and hope.

At the onset of the short film From Above, we meet Morten and his daughter Viola creating a fantastic image of a tiger using an array of clothes on the floor. The image only makes sense once Viola stands on the kitchen table, at which point she can see the “tiger” they have made as well as her dad smiling and waving proudly next to the artwork. We flash-forward some years and find that Morten is no longer the together man we met earlier, his appearance is shockingly rough, he lurks outside Viola’s home peering in (no longer welcome inside), and he has become the town’s drunken homeless person, facing all manner of shame and judgement from those he meets.

The way a child can look down on their parent from a height and feel such burning pride gets beautifully juxtaposed with a similar vantage point later in the film, one in which Morten is looking nowhere near as inspiring. That’s largely the point of Kopernikus’ film, how easy it is to fall down and what that might look like to the rest of us “from above”. Morten’s immense struggle to find a grip on his life is obvious to all he encounters and yet we don’t see any lifeline thrown to him, not a shred of charitable behaviour. Indeed, his plight is met more often with anger or indifference.

The sublime performance of Nicolaj Kopernikus provides a sense of relief (always a worry when the star is also the writer and director) and it is a powerhouse display of highs and extreme lows from the central character’s life. A lot of the performance is brilliantly non-verbal, as there is not a huge amount of dialogue in the film and Morten himself is a character of few words.

Instead, the filmmaking relies on an emotive score that manages to bombard the viewer spectacularly to build the tension on screen, as well as excellent settings for simple scenes to play out without the need to splat the audience with bulky exposition. A simple flashback is used to ensure the viewer gets the clarity they need to fully appreciate Morten’s downfall.

It is Morten’s artistic nature which in the end saves him, being able to convey something everyone thought was lost in a beautiful way, a moment in time where the angle with which you view it is crucial in your understanding of the subject. If you come away from this beautifully crafted film feeling unmoved, perhaps you need a new vantage point in life.