“Transference” (2020) - Review
"Transference" is a tragic story of insecurity and self-sabotage in the face of love and happiness. Transference is the practice of substitution, and writer/director/star Raffaello Degruttola sees this as a symptom of this doomed coupling.
Katerina (Emilie Sofie Johannesen) is a Norwegian Nurse making a life in London in palliative care. When a long term patient tragically dies, she's sent reeling. Nik (played by writer/director Raffaello Degruttola), a fellow nurse, shows compassion and friendship. Katerina is attracted to the older Nik, and after a motorcycle ride home, she makes him an offer that he can't refuse. This secret affair starts fast and, before long, careens off course.
One of the best scenes in the “Transference” is an exchange between Nik and his ex Marieke (Lotte Verbeek). There's an aura of tension and pain exuding from their very cordial exchange. Nik, in his way, is asking for permission to love the much younger Katerina. Marieke reveals that her new relationship is blooming too. In this scene and scenes like it, the audience is forced to endure and imagine the heartache that led these people to this point and the sad acceptance that the love they shared (and that remains - in its way) can never materialise into a successful relationship. The shot, reverse shot, at either end of the table reinforces their equality and fixed proximity.
Johannesen's delivers on Katerina's determined longing in the early stages of "Transference". Katerina is an outsider, a migrant working whose limited connection to a community in her newly adopted country, see her investing her emotions into her patients. When her patient passes away and her emphatic lust for life is betrayed by a terminal disease, Katerina seems newly imbued with a sense of connection, and Nik (Degruttola) is in the right place at the right time. Once together, and the reality of this connection seems too good to be true, Katerina systematically withdraws. Degruttola writes into a corner, and the only way out is figurative detonation. The contrivance of this aloof detachment compromises Johannesen's performance.
Degruttola seems to have much more of a handle on the character of Nik, who, according to the filmmaker, draws heavily on lived experience - his father battled with a bipolar mood disorder for the duration of his life. Degruttola's laconic processing, attempting to control his emotions and eventual unravelling (largely offscreen) is so much richer in their economy.
Overall, "Transference" lacks confidence, choosing on many occasions to say (sometimes with grating needle drops, rather than convey the feelings it wants the characters and the film to express. The voice-over narration intends to provide a window into the inner workings of Katerina. Instead of deepening our understanding of her motivations or any traumatic moments that shape her behaviour - it forms adds another layer of deception - she's unreliable with her own emotions.
