Film Review: Papapa

Got a spare 20 minutes? Enjoy dramas with naturalistic dialogue and pleasant cinematography? You should check out the Danish short film, Papapa! Released in 2020 and winner of the Best Fiction category in the 2021 Ekko Shortlist Awards, Papapa tells the story of donor-conceived child, Elin, meeting her biological father, Jens, and the emotions of both upon meeting each other.

The film is set in the FAR clinic, an organisation that specialises in introducing donor-conceived children with their biological fathers through a series of customised activities designed to introduce and encourage a parent-child relationship in a controlled environment and over a short period of time.

Some of these activities included simulating their first meeting at an airport and then repeating the first meeting now that both parties were acquainted, a simulated fishing trip, and a professional photoshoot. This setting feels quite uncanny, almost like a Black Mirror episode, as most of the activities look to be awkward for the main characters, while the clinic itself looks fairly generic and artificial. It makes for an interesting atmosphere, as I wasn't always sure what direction the film was heading. At times, it felt like there might be inappropriate tension between the two leads, but at other times, it felt like a masked villain was going to appear in a shadowy corner of the room.

What did feel completely natural and incredibly human was Elin's reactions and emotions to each situation. This naturalness as well as the awkwardness, in both dialogue and physical acting, was reminiscent to the tone of the 2017 film, Call Me by Your Name, which portrayed the ups and downs of a blossoming first love through the same naturalistic dialogue and prolonged scenes that originally feel redundant. Papapa uses these same techniques to highlight the challenges of meeting a stranger for the first time with a set of somewhat rigid expectations for the potential relationship. Through these film techniques, we as an audience follow alongside Elin, who slowly grows more and more confused and uncomfortable with the experience.

Elin's confusion is made particularly clear in one scene, where she and Jens are made to face each other and practice using different titles on one another to ease into their new dynamic. Jens settles into using the phrases 'my daughter' and 'my child', while Elin eventually expresses her frustration with the situation, exclaiming, 'This just feels totally… The words end up having no meaning.' This statement comes after she repeats the Danish word for 'dad' – papa – over and over again, which ultimately blends the word into itself to get the title of the film.

The combination of both uncanny setting but highly naturalistic dialogue makes for an intriguing viewing experience. To me, it felt like the directors chose to present the interactions between Elin and Jens in such an artificial environment to emphasise how foreign and unique the experience of meeting a biological parent might be for a donor-conceived child. If we, as the audience, feel a little unsure of the setting, we more easily relate to Elin's own uncertainty in the situation.

There are also moments when the rooms both characters are in are empty, dark or a combination of the two, and this does make the characters look like they're performing on a stage. Upon reflection, this was a clever decision on the filmmakers' part, as it accentuates the relationship between the characters, rather than their somewhat unconventional reason for meeting. Each of these choices by the filmmakers adds an extra layer to the experience, during the audience more emotionally into the story.

As someone with a personal passion for photography, I also found the cinematography to be particularly charming. There is a prominent colour scheme of blue and orange throughout most of the film. Blue and orange are complementary colours, and this scheme is fairly common for human-centric stories, as human flesh tends to give off a warm, orange-y tone, which, when paired with blue shades, makes the people within a film really stand out. When Elin listens to Jens tell her that he feels intuitively connected to her, and she explains, in response, that she is struggling to feel a connection, the colour scheme is muted, reflecting the heavy emotions of the scene. The film's final scene is much more saturated than the previous, which makes Elin and Jens seem more separated as individuals, but also more vibrant and comfortable. As an audience member, we are to understand that although Elin and Jens felt different emotions from this experience, the sharing of these emotions not only resolved Elin's own confusion, but also empowered the pair to part ways on good terms.

To sum it up neatly, Papapa felt like a very human story. From a professional perspective, the film offered a curious suggestion for how donor-conceived children might best meet their biological parents. From a patient perspective, Papapa might validate the fact that not all meetings with biological relatives are straightforward, and that having a range of emotions or feeling confused and/or overwhelmed is a very natural response to the situation. I very much enjoyed this short film, and would encourage you to watch it yourself, especially if you've ever wondered about what it might be like for donor-conceived children to meet their biological relatives.