Something Must Break

A Swedish Generation Y movie about transgenderism and loneliness, also known as Something Must Break. Saga Becker is phenomenal in this small gem that's been permeated with melancholy. At the same time the film feels incredibly liberating because it talks about gender and the freedom to be who you are without restrictive cisgenderism and heteronormativity. Maybe that's just it: this liberty, which is not at all won at this moment in history, is still something bleak and isolated. Because of that there's a certain kind of sadness surrounding the personal struggle fought by trans people. Sebastian / Ellie is such a person who identifies her/himself not as gay or straight, not as male or female, not as transsexual, but as something that isn't called by name in the movie, something "queer" you might say. While his/her search for an own identity manifests itself, Something Must Break manages to bring up some (other) big issues of our time (in the Western World): solitude, unemployment, depression, the search for meaning in this life, etc. A beautiful yet heavy-hearted movie with a nice soundtrack by Tami Tamaki and Olof Dreijer (The Knife). Recommended!

Even though there are more and more films about transgenders, "Something Must Break" (the title refers to a song by Joy Division) deploys arguments and a beauty that go beyond what we are used to see. Saga Becker performs brilliantly in this first role (no wonder why the director took two years to find her actress) that she plays with tenderness and melancholy. Despite a cold scenery and a gloomy Stockholm, the warmth of the characters and the intimacy that they build together has something charming and even magical. The camera focus on the bubble in which the characters live and it follows their evolution –natural but sometimes abrupt – on their quest to get what they desire. The purity from the tenderness scenes is literally mesmerising and "Something Must Break" brilliantly avoids the pitfalls inherent to LGTB films. Far from the colours and extravagance of Araki's movies, this movie is quite rough but still offers some crazy scenes, an insanity that stem from Andreas and Ellie's passion. Because we never know if this passion is made of love or not, but the director wants to make the viewer understand that the goal is not to know or to see it but to feel it. Full review on our blog : https://losindiscretos.org/English/something- must-break-2014-ester-martin-bergsmark