Eternal
Danish writer/director Ulaa Salim (Sons of Denmark, SIFF 2019) helms this “sliding doors” romantic eco-thriller, as a climate change scientist tasked with repairing a terrible fracture in the Earth’s core considers how his life could have gone differently when he runs into an old flame.
Director Ulaa Salim first registered with me via his galvanizing and relevant political thriller Sons of Denmark (SIFF 2019), which cleverly subverted and usurped the police procedural to fresh ends through Salim's ability to merge formal deftness with the inner consciousness of the film's themes. Returning with his sophomore feature Eternal, the intrepid and tactile Danish filmmaker makes a turn towards science fiction with themes also marked with a poignant timeliness. Eternal follows Elias, a young and driven climate scientist studying to close a mysterious widening seabed fracture off the coast of Denmark. This environmental anomaly, theorized to be an effect of the worsening climate crisis, also happens to collide with his romance with a woman he meets named Anita, whom he explores the intimate possibility of starting a family with. This split in raison d'êtres for Elias goes on to trouble him with age, with the consequences of his choosing leaving him existentially adrift. Salim teases Fantastic Voyage for ecological heroism and instead delivers a distinct crossbreed between elements of Arrival and Enter the Void. Where Salim takes us is a journey too descript for feeling and too raw for logic. Rife with directorial specificity, Salim's Eternal mesmerizes us into a new dimension of science fiction.
—Dannzel Escobar
- Original Language Title: For evigt
- Director: Ulaa Salim
- Principal Cast: Simon Sears, Nanna Øland Fabricius, Anna Søgaard Frandsen, Viktor Hjelmsøe, Halddóra Geirharosdottir
- Premiere Status: North American
- Country: Denmark, Iceland, Norway
- Year: 2024
- Running Time: 100 min.
- Producer: Grimar Jonsson, Daniel Mühlendorph Jensen
- Screenplay: Ulaa Salim
- Cinematographers: Jacob Møller
- Editors: Jenna Mangulad, Mads Michael Olsen
- Music: Valgeir Sigurðsson
- Website: Official Film Website
- Filmography: Sons of Denmark (2019)
- Language: Danish, English, Swedish
- Has Subtitles: Yes
- US Distributor: Dark Star Pictures
- International Sales: New Europe Film Sales