Sofia Aminoff wrote The Blazing Time – A Portrait of Two Women in a Room* (orig. Den lysande tiden – porträtt av två kvinnor i ett rum) as part of the UNO project for new Finnish drama in 2019. As the title suggests, it is an intimate piece centering around two characters in a closed space.
The two women are Catharina and Lina, who have been in a romantic relationship for at least ten years. They meet sporadically and usually retreat into a run-down villa that Catharina owns and has never got round to renovating. Like the villa, the women’s relationship doesn’t seem quite ready even after such a long time together; they miss each other enormously and feel like they have too little time together in these few days at the villa, but they also have husbands, children and jobs that don’t mix with their relationship.
Much of Catharina’s and Lina’s communication (and miscommunication) takes place in looks, gestures, abrupt changes of subject and words that are left unsaid. They skirt around the tensions in their relationship and the fact that it’s been about a year since their last meeting, but know quite well that they are still there. A resolution really can’t be found; they both have a need of each other but can’t lower their individual walls.
2F
* unofficial translation of the title
