‘Eternal’: Rotterdam Review

Dir/scr: Ulaa Salim. Denmark/Iceland. 2023. 102mins

How can you commit to the future when life on earth seems so finite? It is a question that haunts the central character in writer/director Ulaa Salim’s admirably offbeat romance Eternal. The film’s ‘what if’ premise combines elements of Sliding Doors and Solaris into a soulful exploration of love and regret. Strong casting should help the film gain traction on its April domestic release in Denmark, with a number of territories sold prior to its Rotterdam and Goteborg screenings. 

A soulful exploration of love and regret

Salim’s second feature after Sons Of Denmark (2019) has its roots in his short Ung For Evigt (2012)  and begins with a similar exploration of the intense rush of young love. Elias (Viktor Hjelmso) has barely met Anita (Anna Sogaard Frandsen) when they are picking out a name for the baby they will surely have one day. The young couple’s first encounter is a swirl of vodka shots and flirtation in the seductive shadows of a bar. Their personalities are immediately established. She is blunt and impetuous, cutting through the banal small talk to get to the important stuff; he is more serious and reserved, thrown off balance by her directness. She is an aspiring singer. He is a climate scientist and submarine pilot obsessed by the threats to the future of the planet. She wants to have some fun. He wants to save the world.

The film’s curtain raiser places it firmly in disaster movie/sci-fi territory as a remote Icelandic coastline crumbles into the sea. An earthquake has created a fissure in the earth’s core that could have a catastrophic effect on climate change. Elias’s obsession with the incident is evident from all the cuttings, charts and print-outs that adorn his apartment wall.

The falling-in-love aspect of the relationship is nicely handled and smartly played, anchoring everything that happens subsequently. Fifteen years later Elias (now played by Simon Sears) is piloting the mission to seal the ever growing crack in the earth’s core. His dream has come true, but then he bumps into Anita (Nanna Oland Fabricius aka Danish pop star Oh Land). Their fond, fleeting reunion shows they still having feelings for each other, and prompts him to ponder other dreams and different outcomes if they had stayed together. The descent to the earth’s core also seems to be playing with his mind, conjuring pin-prick visions of that alternative life.

Eternal effectively balances climate change concerns with existential angst. The vital underwater mission seems a little low-key, low-tech and underpopulated, and the earth’s core seems to have a surprisingly bearable temperature. Nevertheless, it all works as a backdrop to the central romance. The notion of time passing and how precious it becomes is referenced throughout. Fifteen years has gone in a blink and what once seemed achievable may now be gone forever. A youth where there was time to have it all has been supplanted by the approach of a middle-age more prone to regrets than possibilities. 

Sleekly shot by Jacob Moller, Eternal frequently unfolds in the claustrophobia of nightclubs and underwater submersibles with ghostly red and green hues to pierce the gloom. By comparison, daylight scenes are all the more striking, like emphatic punctuation.

Eternal remains intriguing and persuasive as a grown-up romance thanks in large part to the excellent casting and appealing performances throughout Frandsen and  Hjelmso are a seamless match for their older counterparts. Singer Fabricius again proves to be a formidable screen presence, while Sears lightly carries the gravity that seems the key to understanding the unflappable Elias and the life he might have had.