Christian Sønderby Jepsen’s The Father, The Sons and The Holy Spirit (a world premiere in DOX:AWARD competition at CPH:DOX) is a sequel to the director’s earlier documentary, The Testament (aka The Will, 2011).
The first film had such a huge impact in Denmark that it inspired a play at the Royal Theatre and was studied in schools. Its characters seemed as if they could have wandered out of some tragic play – brothers struggling against alcohol and drug addiction. They appear to have inherited a fortune from their grandfather. The will, though, sparks a bitter family dispute.
In the new movie, 14 years on, the brothers Henrik and Christian still face tough times. The latter has been living on the streets. The former has a son of his own but is still looking for direction in life.
“I didn’t think the story had been put to an end,” Jepsen explains just why he is again chronicling the lives of the troubled siblings. “Also, film number one had some kind of an open ending – how much money are they going to get, how are they going to use it.”
There was a two-year hiatus after The Testament in which no filming was done. During this period, the director remained in contact with Henrik and Christian by phone. “Then I started filming a little bit but I couldn’t really find the story.”
Then, by chance, Jepsen was called by someone who said he knew Henrik’s cousin and that the cousin wanted to get in contact with him. When he eventually spoke to this cousin, she told him that she and her sister were sure the will – the source of so much angst in the brothers’ lives – had been falsified.
“I thought, OK, maybe that is something the brothers need to know about. She had also tried to contact them but sometimes the brothers aren’t good at answering the phone.”
Henrik and Christian themselves had always been suspicious about the will.
Anders Bruus at DR – Danish Broadcasting Corporation heard that Jepsen might be making a new film on the brothers and called him up, telling him DR would finance the project.
“Then, in a way, I needed to do it because there was some pressure.”
The new documentary begins with the confirmation of Henrik’s son, Alexander. All the family gather together in church for the occasion. For a few hours at least, all the tensions are forgotten. This was in 2015.
“I really like these ceremonies in films because you have some kind of natural development and time-lock,” Jepsen notes.
One of the reasons the first film caused such a stir was that the two siblings are such charismatic figures. You could easily imagine them being played by Method actors.
“They are some type of archetypes,” the director says of the duo. They are also now his friends. He has spent as much time with them as with his own circle.
“I have really sympathy for everyone in this story but of course it is also a business relationship…there is a product I want to make. All the time, they also have this inside them that ‘OK, this could be good for the film or this could be a good scene.’”
Not that the documentary is staged. “They also live in some kind of a fiction…they forget about the camera. It is real for them and real for me. They are original in mind and in how they look.”
Another of the brothers’ most likeable traits is their ability to find humour at even the grimmest moments. Everything becomes an anecdote. If Christian, who has been living on the streets, has a fight with his son or hangs out with Serbian nationalists, he’ll talk about it as if it is just another comic adventure.
“They [the brothers] are very complicated characters. They can sit down with a grandma and be very polite. Then, 15 minutes later, they can stand around with criminals cracking jokes.”
In the new film, Henrik is trying hard to build a respectable life; to get a job, stop smoking cannabis and instead provide a good example for his teenage son. Christian’s life remains more precarious and chaotic. He is searching for meaning and ends up drifting into a “new family” of radical right-wing nationalists.
“I would say he found peace in some way,” the director says of Christian’s new community. His friends may spout extremist rhetoric online but they don’t act on it. His sons, though, are appalled that he is spending time with such extremists.
There were occasions when the director would grow exasperated with the brothers’ antics. “Every documentary maker will say their relationship with the participant is not a clean relationship. It’s very layered. You have to deal with it,” Jepsen reflects.
Henrik is the main character. Christian is “his shadow in a way.” Son Alexander represents a new generation. Some of the drama revolves around his struggle to get successfully through high school. He keeps on dropping out and then re-enrolling.
“For three years, I was waiting for him to graduate. And for three years I was waiting for Henrik to get his job. I couldn’t finish the film without some kind of closure on the stories.”
Jepsen and his partner Mira Jargil were working on the film at the same time as another project that took a small eternity to finish, The Monk (2023). This was a project that had almost collapsed when its subject, a Danish researcher-turned-monk in Sri Lanka, had tried to take control of the project. He later committed suicide. The filmmakers were then dealing with his son, who wanted them to finish the film.
“In a way, it is a privilege to make documentary but I can also see there is hardly anybody above 45 years old continuing as a director,” Jepsen sighs as he contemplates the challenges of his chosen profession. He and Jargil have their own production company which allows them to earn fees even as they make long-term observational documentaries. “The best stories take time. If you look at directors’ ages in Denmark, I am 47 but there are not many above 47. They all become teachers, doing a documentary now and then, or work on television.”
Whatever the struggles that making documentaries presents, Jepsen isn’t turning his back on the brothers quite yet. The director was inspired by Swedish filmmaker Stefan Jarl’s ‘Mods Trilogy’ and says that he will eventually make a third instalment of the ‘Will trilogy.’
“In 15 years, it is the ambition to film one more film, the last one….”
In the meantime, Camera Film will release The Father, The Sons and The Holy Spirit in Denmark on March 27.
