Above the Knee, which had its world premiere at BeyondFest 2024, follows a man so desperate to cut off his own leg that it consumes his life. Like in his first feature Good Boy (2022), director Viljar Bøe delves into an absurd yet somehow plausible human phenomenon and turns it into a character study. Above the Knee teeters between a frustrating watch and an unnerving thriller. While the premise, acting, and practical effects are impressive enough to keep viewers engaged and their posterior clenched, the film dangles interesting ideas ultimately discarding elaboration to simply revel in the perverse.
While the film is largely carried by the concept of a voluntary amputation, punctuated by countless interstitials of pooling blood and sawed-off flesh, the vast majority is static and buoyed by the three lead actors and dialogue of fluctuating quality.
Amir (Freddy Singh) suffers from Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID): a phenomenon in which a person believes a part of their body does not belong to them. In Amir’s case, this manifests as his lower left leg progressively rotting. After watching Rikke (Louise Waage Anda), who wishes to be blind, on the news Amir sets his plans of amputation into motion. The rest of the film follows the days leading up to the “accident” Amir plans which consumes his daily life and threatens his relationship with his partner Kim (Julie Abrahamsen).
Despite the premise of “man fights to cut off own leg,” there’s very little action in Above the Knee. Much of the film is Amir sitting somewhere–be it his office, his painting room, or Rikke’s house–and either musing on his condition or burying himself in lies to conceal the increasing need to sever his leg. Even the beautiful shots of Norway’s rocky landscape become cloying.
Because there are so few locations, every location begins to feel increasingly stifling as Amir’s visions of his rotting leg become more frequent and visceral. Although the frequent cuts to the same few shots of pooling blood and bone marrow with the same music sting, the impact has diminishing returns and the progression of Amir’s rotting leg gets appropriately nastier as his delusions worsen.
Freddy Singh–who also served as screenwriter–is the heart and soul of the film. All three leads are. Abrahamsen gets time to shine as a partner tired of being dragged around and lied to. Likewise, Anda plays the shades of Rikke–both as a sympathetic fellow BIID-haver and a less-sympathetic other half in an emotional affair–with precision.
But Singh has the meatiest role: one rife with contradictions. Amir knows his delusion is grandiose and hard to parse; even he can only speculate on why he needs to cut off his leg. He also has compelling reasons for not wanting to bring these delusions to other’s attention, especially Kim’s. But, once he begins letting the visions of his rotting leg take over his daily life, Amir becomes a real bastard. However, he doesn’t necessarily become uncompelling as Singh handles this gradual shift in characterization with grace. He transforms from a man to a cornered animal.
The largest issue with Above the Knee is an inconsistent tone and a shocking lack of focus. Since there’s no ambiguity around Amir going through with his “accident,” the film coasts on the idea that watching Amir grapple with his delusions of a rotting leg is enough. The mileage of the concept varies, but the seeming lack of empathy for either Amir or Rikke drastically shortens it.
Bøe seems content to just watch Amir’s condition subsume him: this comes off as objective at best, detached and unsympathetic at worst. A lack of explanation as to why Amir developed BIID is fine, the ambiguity is refreshing. Where the problem lies is a refusal to engage beyond treating BIID as some sort of spectacle and Amir as a freak of nature. The film briefly brings up the ethics of voluntary disability but quickly eschews it for more bloody hallucinations.
Above the Knee is an uneven sophomore feature from Bøe: technically a fantastic watch, but thematically messy. It’s buoyed by its performances and the promise of a bloody spectacle at the end. Unfortunately, there’s not much else to it. The suspense, a central tenet of a thriller, is undermined in the first five minutes. It’s eighty minutes leading up to a two-and-a-half-minute spectacle. As good as the performances and practical effects are, a pointed lack of depth makes the film ring hollow.
Review Courtesy of Red Broadwell
Feature Image Courtesy of Blue Finch Film Releasing