Holiday (2018) - Poor Turkey holiday in drowsy debut

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A modelesque young blonde in a bathing suit stands in a pool of blood on this alarming poster for Isabella Eklöf's Holiday

In a Turkish coastal town a Danish group arrive, drug criminals from Copenhagen with young, blonde Sascha as the boss' mistress, who accepts a great many things in order to be awarded this dubious honor.

 

Holiday is written by Johanne Algren (Copenhagen Cowboy (2022, TV-series)) and debuting co-writer/director Isabella Eklöf (Willkommen in Barbaristan (2009, short)). 

It is a mysterious film that lacks a narrative drive; one may at most talk of a drift here. Our engagement in Sascha and the other characters, who we mostly observe from a distance, is also very limited, since they are all quite repulsive. 

Striking compositions and credible performances just barely save Holiday from being a total slump. - But what is Swedish Eklöf trying to convey to us with this film? And why exactly is it people from the Danish peninsula Amager that should be portrayed like this? (Instead of, for instance, representatives of the legions of criminal clans that wreak havoc in Eklöf's own country?)

 

Related post:

 

Isabella Eklöf: Border/Gräns (2018) - The second Lindqvist adaptation is another wtf-experience with muddled implications if any (co-writer) 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 11.5 mil. DKK, approximately 1.68 mil. $

Box office: Approximately 45k $

= Box office disaster (returned 0.02 times its cost)

[Holiday premiered 21 January (Sundance Film Festival) and runs 93 minutes. Shooting took place in Turkey. The film sold 3,094 tickets in its home market (Denmark) and has a recorded UK gross of 2,678 $. In total this should come to around 45k $. The film was nominated for 6 Robert awards, Denmark's Oscar, among other honors. Eklöf returned with Servant (2021, TV-series), Industry (2022, TV-series) and theatrically with Kalak (2023). Vic Carmen Sonne (In the Blood/I Blodet (2016)), who plays Sascha, returned in Neon Heart (2018).  Holiday is fresh at 78 % with a 7.30/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Holiday?