it’s truly amazing to see the contrast between isak’s facial expression and posture during these two encounters with the “dance chicks”
in the first one, he’s looking at them dancing, and the way that scene is shot is meant to make us understand that these girls are seen as attractive to guys who are, as far as we’ve been told, attracted to girls (in this case, isak’s friends). we see them dancing in slow motion, tight clothes and skin showing and isak’s friends are showing clear interest. but he’s not. he sits there, brows furrowed, head resting on his hand. both his facial expression and his body language denote that he’s cogitating (think of the thinker by auguste rodin). he’s thinking and trying. trying to figure out if this is for him, if he can find it in himself to be interested in what he’s looking at. he’s still on the defensive, because of what he thinks it means to be gay, because of what he thinks the implications of that label are. he himself still associates being gay with the stereotype of being gay, and at that moment, his internalized homophobia and his fear of being reduced to a stereotype he doesn’t relate to make him question his sexuality even more. and he’s thinking that if he’s not what he thinks it means to be gay, then why is he not feeling any attraction?
in the second encounter, the girls are still meant to seem attractive to guys who are attracted to girls. confident walks in slow motion, with a song in the background that keeps repeating and insisting on the word girls, and isak’s friends once again showing interest. there’s a parallel between the two encounters, but this time isak’s posture and facial expression are completely different. he casually stands there, hands in his pockets, seeming relaxed and unaffected. his brows aren’t furrowed, you can’t see any sign of effort on his face. he’s not thinking hard, he’s not trying, he’s not on the defensive. he doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter. and the thing is that he feels a lack of interest during the two encounters, but the way that lack of interest is presented is different. in the first frame, isak is aware of it, deep down, but he’s still fighting it, he’s still questioning it. in the second one, isak is also aware of it, but the difference is that he’s not trying to fight or question it because he’s at peace with it
and it was so great to see him like this in the very last episode of the season, of his journey of self-acceptance, because this was the last episode we would get from his point of view. and we got to see, from the look on his face and the way he stood, just how far he had come. we got to see that, at last, these overwhelming thoughts and questions and the confusion that had filled isak’s mind for so long had vanished. we got to see that isak finally understood that his sexuality was not a personality trait, that it did not mean he had to fit into a certain mold, that he could be whoever he was. and so there he was in that second frame, self-aware and free and serene
