Janus Metz's Indy Films Explore Convenience Marriages in Denmark
/Danish director Janus Metz explores the world of “convenience marriages” in Denmark, zeroing in on a remote western region of Denmark, where nearly 600 Thai women currently live with their Danish husbands in an act of free will and not coercion.
The first documentary “Love on Delivery” is followed by “Ticket to Paradise” in a unique dual film project in which director Metz collaborated with an ethnographer, Sine Plambech, to fuse scientific and cinematic methods into an artistic summary and emotional, psychological and functional snapshot of real life.
Reading WIP’s From Denmark with Love: An Interview with Filmmaker Janus Metz and also Arranged Marriages Thais and Danes and Huff Po’s Lonely Danes and Thai Brides, I’m struck that both writings expend much energy digging into the depth and complexity of these “convenience marriages”.
In our tell-all world, the films focus on what isn’t said between the two cultures and genders, portraying not only the subtleties of quiet romance and a possible evolution into love, but also the economic politics of first and third world countries.
Filling in the blanks, “Love on Delivery” does begin in a night of sex tourism in Thailand, the beginning of a “career” for Sommai, who has become the grand madam of northern Denmark, handling all the administrative details of this process of bringing Thai women to Denmark.
The Thai women in both films are fiercely entrepreneurial, self-focused and determined to create better lives for themselves and their families. The focus is not the exploitation of women or one in which the women are mere pleasure objects or property of men. Metz explained his editorial focus in this YouTube brief video. A
Janus Metz, “Love on Delivery”