A Review of this month’s film selection, “The Pact”
by John Bennison, Mountain Shadow Director

“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.” – Isak Dinesen

Movie-goers will likely remember the 1985 Hollywood film “Out of Africa,” featuring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, and their love-torn romance. The film was loosely based on the memoir by the same title, written by Karen Blixen; whose pen name was Isak Dinesen. In her book, she describes her life on a coffee plantation during British colonial years in Africa; along with her grief over the loss of her several loves.

The real Baroness Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke (1885-1962) earned her title by marriage. She was considered several times for the Nobel prize for literature for her memoir, and other writings.

By the time Blixen meets Thorkild Bjørnvig in 1948, she is twice his age. Withered and wracked from the ravages of syphilis, she is nonetheless sufficiently endowed with literary fame and fortune to weave her spell over the aspiring young poet.

It is against this backdrop that director, Bille August brings us the film, “The Pact,” based on Thorkild Bjørnvig’s own memoir, “The Pact: My Friendship with Isak Dinesen.”

In the mentoring agreement, Blixen does not promise to help her apprentice hone his writing skills; but only provide the wherewithal to allow him the means to practice his crafts. That is, as long as he obeys her every command. As their relationship devolves, we never see or hear a single line of poetry.* Instead, the film depicts a psychological study in character development; as the two slowly sink into an all-consuming interdependence with their own unmet needs.

Ultimately, it is only through the love of Bjørnvig’s forbearing wife and young child is he able to learn the more important lesson. From the depths of the baroness’ true impoverishment, he is only able to extricate himself from her near-lethal spell by offering a simple gesture of true affection. jb

* Footnote - While the film does not offer us a glimpse of Bjørnvig’s poetry, I’ve provided his work entitled, “The Grebe” (right). After viewing “The Pact,” read the lines of the poem and consider whether the poet might have been ruminating about his sorceress!

A Poem by the Danish poet Thorkild Bjørnvig

The Grebe
(A grebe is a swimming, diving bird)

With the perfect curve of the neck,
the beak’s slender lance
it points at me, swaying
and follows, as if it would dance,
the smallest of my movements,
elegant, fine and alert –
but its body is that of a penguin,
held upright, passive, inert.
It does not fly as expected –
on its breast a stain of oil
has insinuated itself,
has sapped its power and spoilt
its desire to call, to mate and breed,
to swim, to fly and dive,
to hunt, to catch, devour –
its joy at being alive;
has struck like a deadly disease:
a drop, a germ that’s afloat,
and the mineral leprosy
glues feathers to sticky coat.
Reduced to just jetsam
midst planks and cans in the sand,
no use at all, unable to fish
dropped by water, air and land,
on its way down to life-cycle’s Hades:
each slowly dwindling thing –
it watches my moves intently
as around it I walk in a ring.
Sick little deity,
lost on the lonesome expanses,
nature, the mighty has never as yet
brooked impairment’s nuances
from perfection down to pure
obliteration; – no plight
that from wild beasts does not dictate
reasserted power or death outright.
Which is why I will not try in vain
to clean your body of slick,
for you would defend your last rest
with wild fear, were I to pick
you up as if you should live. No,
tonight’s moon’s a more intimate friend
and the clouds, the sky and what
you so calmly await as your end.
And you will sink down: your last
perfect movement – leaving no trace,
lie outstretched a shapeless form
in this fortuitous place.