Dark Blossom – Hot Docs 2021

The evolving relationship of three Goth friends in a small town in Denmark in Dark Blossom. Josephine is a 20-year-old living in a small town, who has embraced Goth culture with her friends Nightmare, a gay, half-Pakistani musician and Jay, a pensive Christian with a skyscraping mohawk. Together, the three share their love of darkness and roadkill taxidermy, but things begin to change when Josephine gets a new boyfriend, which threatens to break the bond between the three.

Dark Blossom is an exploration of Danish Goth culture from director Frigge Fri. The film kicks off in a very eerie fashion, as the main subject of Josephine is introduced with glow-in-the-dark eyebrows, walking the streets with her heavily made-up friends of Nightmare and Jay. Josephine's main hobbies involve hosting live streams on Instagram and stuffing roadkill animals, all while sporting one of her many wigs. However, Josephine's connection to Goth culture lessens when she gets in a serious relationship with her new boyfriend Jan, which leads to her growing apart from Nightmare and Jay.

One of the more interesting story developments of Dark Blossom is the character evolution of the main subject Josephine, who over the course of the film steadily becomes less full-on ingrained in Goth culture, wearing less make-up and decorating her room with Hello Kitty dolls. It's this evolution that forms the main backbone of the documentary, as it's contrasted with that of Nightmare and Jay, who are arguably more “all in” when it comes to embracing the darkness. Overall, Dark Blossom is probably most appealing to those who already have an interest in the Goth lifestyle, but it's still a solid character study.

Dark Blossom is streaming as part of the 2021 Hot Docs Film Festival

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