Just like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the favourite film of Danish director Emil Langballe when he was growing up, the feature doc Petrolheads, world-premiering March 14 in DOX Competition and sold by Verità Films, is a buddy movie. And one that is, for Langballe, particularly personal. Martin, his younger brother, has learning difficulties, as has Martin’s best friend Casper. But that doesn’t stop them talking about cars, working on cars, and buying cars. And Martin’s long-held dream is to buy a Honda Civic.
The problem is, aside from his learning difficulties, Martin has addictions, in his case cocaine. After he is assessed as capable of living on his own in a flat, he becomes prey to some bad types looking to profit financially from his vulnerability. What’s more, he loses his driver’s licence after his Class-A demons taken over.
But he has a firm friend in Casper, who was in a Romanian orphanage until the age of two, before he was adopted at by a Danish couple Yes, at one point the stress of observing Martin’s decline, and having to put up with his lies, became too much and Casper cut off contact – an episode that still deeply upsets Martin. But now he has returned, and looking after his friend’s back, even if the process continues to be both frustrating and at times upsetting.
All the time, Danish director Emil Langballe is there to record proceedings, a lot of the time from the back of the car as the two friends talk, whether of cars, or more reflectively about their friendship and life in general, and even if Casper’s condition means he cannot retain any form of eye contact.
Langballe had previously made a film about one of Martin’s friends (A Married Couple, 2019), but this time, “it was his time to shine.”
“He told me about this blog that he and Casper had been doing, where they would drive all over Denmark to test drive cars in different kind of auto shops, and then they would write about it,” he tells BDE.
“And I thought, I just really liked them as a couple and liked this kind of energy that they had and this rapport with each other,” he adds. “It was a very honest and open friendship they had, so I was really drawn by that and about the kind of the world they would inhabit, like all these old kinds of scrap yards and auto dealers.”
But reality kicked in when Martin began to develop his addiction. “I had to watch from the sidelines as he was changing personality and being more and more stressed and pushed from all sides, and then I thought at some point, what have we gotten ourselves into? Can we make this film at all?”
Especially as Langballe was having to speak to the police many times, reporting on the threats that Martin was receiving. “But it’s very, very difficult for them to investigate matters like these, because there’s really not any evidence, and it’s hard to pursue. So sometimes you feel, does anyone really care about what happens to a guy like Martin, and it’s a very hopeless and desperate feeling.”
But the film doesn’t dwell solely on this downside. The major focus is Martin’s special friendship with Casper.
“From the beginning I imagined it as this kind of light-hearted and warm buddy movie because that was also exactly how I saw them, like this kind of wonderful, wonderful couple,” says Langballe. “They would almost kind of finish each other’s sentences and they had developed this strange language when I drove around with them. I would hardly ever understand what they were saying because they had all these slang words and phrases, and they would in many ways remind me of an old married couple, and they had this tenderness towards each other and this care that really touched me.”
Yes, there are also aspects of The Odd Couple, Langballe agrees, but he sees more similarities with First Cow by Kelly Reichardt. “I’ve always been attracted to these kind of stories of beautiful friendships, and I always liked buddy movies myself, and I thought Martin and Casper were this iconic kind of couple who called out to be filmed.”
The film includes a handful of stylised recreations that Martin and Casper loved being part of. “The good thing was that even though we sometimes set up shots and created these tableaus, they would come into the scene and make it completely their own, and I would never be able to predict what it [the scene] would be about in the end, because they would take their own energy into it, and they really enjoyed that.”
What’s more, Casper is a serious film buff, who always dreamed of being in a film himself. “So it seemed to come quite natural to them. They would actually call me every week to ask when are we going to shoot again. It became, in a way, their other job and it was a very nice experience. Of course, it would be hard as well when Martin got into this worst state of mind, but it would also be a breathing space for him, a safe haven from all his struggles where he could just be with Casper and with me and this cinematographer.”
Both Martin and Casper will be at the March 14 world premiere, but Martin has already seen the film a few times, Langballe tells BDE. “He had some very interesting comments, especially in that scene where he lied to Casper about his addiction, and how he felt embarrassed, but he also felt that this is how an addict behaves and that he was actually able to reflect on that while watching the film,” says the director. “Martin also expressed to Casper how thankful he was for sticking with him through this hard process.”
There is, naturally, a strong Impact dimension to the project. “I would hope that this film will start a conversation about how we can, as a society be better at embracing people like Casper and Martin, and maybe seeing them as resources instead of just a burden,” says Langballe. “And how can we also be better at protecting them from all these kinds of cynical people who try to take advantage of them, which is ridden with all this digitalisation of the social security system, where it’s very easy to take people’s information and use them.”
“Petrolheads is my tribute to Martin and Casper. To me, they are heroes,” Langballe sums up. “With my film, I want to celebrate them and their friendship, and show how vital it is to have someone to lean on when everything falls apart. I hope the audience will be drawn into their universe, cry and laugh with them, and at the same time reflect on their own relationships, friendships and prejudices.”
