In fulfilling his everyday duties, the most common of common communal clerks ends up in a huge building to check the water meter. That task turns out to be the last fragment of the man’s everyday routine – he is imprisoned in a house to escape from which he must chew his way through the toughest knots of human existence. In the search for a way out, the audience is guided by the knowledge that the house stands for a system cast in concrete, the dramaturgic room layout of which adheres to the theory of psychoanalysis on the grassroot level.

A truly remarkable piece for those who have the courage to roam Kafkaesque labyrinths in the name of a cultural experience and who are not afraid of grotesquely pitch-black absurd humour. The latter of course, if every aspect of the film is perfected to the finest detail and its elements are in their clearly defined and poignant place. "The Penultimate" has all of that and offers us an impressive example of an author who has fully evolved by the time of his debut film and whose work is driven by strong-handed vision and style.

The new talent support provided by the Danish Film Institute was an inspiring stepping stone in the making of this film, offering a longer preproduction period for developing the visual expressiveness of the film through sketches and drawings. That has also created the film language of “The Penultimate”, which shows the audience a captivatingly cryptic pre-conscious and subconscious world.

Elise Eimre