Ridder Lykke (2023) | Short Film Spotlight

International Title: Knight of Fortune — Directed by Lasse Lyskjær Noer — Screenplay by Lasse Lyskjær Noer.

Recently, the Academy Awards-shortlisted short film Ridder Lykke from Danish writer-director Lasse Lyskjær Noer was announced as one of the five nominated films in the competitive and coveted Live-Action Short Film category. In a field that included quite a few big-name efforts like Disney’s The Shepherd starring John Travolta and Pedro Almodóvar’s Strange Way of Life starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal, it was quite the surprise that a tiny short film from Denmark made the cut while those other films did not. It’ll still have a steep hill to climb, if it is to ultimately win the Oscar, as it’ll be up against Wes Anderson’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, which is, undoubtedly, the frontrunner in the category.

Produced by frequent Live-Action short-nominee and two-time winner Kim Magnusson (though he isn’t the nominated producer on this one), this is a short film about two men — the Swede, Karl, and the Dane, Torben — helping each other to face their grief and their losses head-on. We meet them in the halls of a morgue, where Carl (played by Leif Andrée) is struggling with actually opening up his wife’s coffin. He’d much rather do literally anything else. In the bathroom, he meets Torben (played by Jens Jørn Spottag) who has similar fears, but who is brave enough to ask for Carl’s help in finally saying goodbye.

Leif Andrée, Jens Jørn Spottag, and Jesper Lohmann (playing the two men and a mortuary porter, respectively) all delivered commendable work here in this sad but also oddly comical short. The humor in the face of dark and sad subject matter could easily overtake and overwhelm the film, but it never does. Rather this works for it quite well, I thought, as the tones never clash. The character of ‘Torben’ is so crucial to the film. Not just in the way that he pushes Carl to realize that he must open his wife’s coffin and say his goodbyes, but also for how his nervous energy adds to the tone and how he creates that absurd moment with the unknown family that keeps you on your toes. I’ll go into specifics about that below (and one other thing), so if you haven’t yet seen it, then do be aware of the fact that this next bit is a bit of a spoiler.

That it isn’t actually Torben’s wife in the coffin, and that they’re interrupted by an actual grieving family, is the film’s most surprising element. I thought it was an interesting idea to have Jesper Lohmann’s character tell Carl that the grief-stricken Torben is known to roam the halls because he can’t say goodbye to his wife. That stuff hits hard. The whole idea about Carl wanting to fix the fluorescent tube light, because he can’t fix his grief, isn’t exactly the most original thing in the world, but it works to illustrate his situation at the early stages of the short film.

On the whole, I thought this really worked as an emotional but kind and sweet short film (with a pinch of dark Danish humor added in) about getting over grief by allowing others to mourn with you. Admittedly, I have a hard time seeing it actually win the Oscar given that they’re up against Wes Anderson, but I do think it is a worthy nomination, and I am very happy for my countrymen who put this film together.

– Review / Article Written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.