Sarah Lund in Forbrydelsen; In love with a character!!!

Forbrydelsen (The Killing), Dannish TV series, a Thriller, created by Soren Sviestrup

It was my research on Viking, that lead me to Forbrydelsen. People from around the world were discussing this detective series from Denmark. So my expectations were quite high and it took some time for me to get into the feel of the story. In Forbrydelsen, the script delves seriously into 3 sides, the detectives, the victims family and the political side. The screen time is almost equally divided between these three, and it is brilliantly realistic. Morevoer, unlike in any other detective story, here a lot of impetus is given on the victims family and how a crime affects the political scenario, that too with lots of details. Naturally, it takes some time to understand a different kind of culture and set up. However, soon we are in, and there after it is a thrilling ride. Almost all the important details happen in front of the camera, lots of matters are not explained, but the viewer has to think to make it out and there is a kind of subtlety to every aspect - acting or settings or cinematography or background score and what not. I am out of words to explain, how brilliant this was. Every thing looks so normal, there is not even an iota of exaggeration on any aspect, and it will keep you hooked for the whole length (20 episodes for season 1 and 10 for 2). I have now watched both the first and second seasons of Forbrydelsen and I will give a 10/10 for season 1 and 9/10 for season 2. I think, that says a lot.

An absolutely 'out of this world' kind of creation, by Soren Sviestrup. The brain of this man should be preserved and studied. What a genius. The kind of details he delves into, for the three aspects of the story, is brilliant. Each and every character gives a normal, subtle, performance. In whole, the treatment is against all conventional ways of making a thriller. Not to ignore that he has managed a thriller, with hardly any action element. I must also say, another high point of the series is its background score, by Frans Bak. Especially, loved the piece that flows into towards the end credits.

Well, the main attraction of this series is its main CID, Sarah Lund. Yes, the main detective is a woman, an ordinary woman. She doesnt have any super heroine looks nor is she superiorly intelligent to others around her. Here is an ordinary woman, absolutely ordinary in all aspects, except that she is very intutive and she gets immersed in what she is doing, with full passion and is quite a hard worker. She doesnt even seem to have changed her clothes for days. (a jumper she wore, is said to have been a big hit across the world that it was being sold like hot cakes, online) Sarah Lund, unlike all other detectives, is not an all in one machine. She ends up making mistakes, leading to real blunders sometimes and is error prone like any normal being. As I said, this series is synonym of Normality on screen and Lund is the hall mark. She rarely even attempts a smile, and almost always have a blunt expression-less face. But whenever the camera is on her, we can see that her mind is working, thinking hard, and we feel for her. It is beyond any explanation, for me, how she managed to pull this character off so effectively.

I have watched couple of other movies, after watching Forbydelsen, but in the last days I have thought about Sarah Lund, as much as I have thought about my dear wife or about my work or about Leo Messi. She is not leaving my thoughts, from my mind. I have to say, for the first time in my life, I am in love with a character. I searched for the actor who have played her, brilliantly portrayed by Sofie Grabol, and I plan to watch more movies of her, but it is Sarah Lund who is wandering around in my thoughts. What a character? I never thought, I would ever get so much attached to a character on screen. I had liked many actors, have adored Maradona and Messi but never did I got into love with a character. I cant believe this, so forgive me for repeating.

I cant help posting a photo of Sarah Lund (This looks like a promotional photo, rather than a still from the series)

I realise that I have got too much into it, that I decided to watch the season 3, later. 

Friends, if you like to watch the best investigative movie (of course, its a TV series, but I cant think about a better movie), watch this. You can find torrents easily and make sure you download the original Dannish one, with English subtitles. Like always, it was immediately remade in America and European critics are slamming it on most points. So please avoid it.

Viceværten - A Caretakers Tale

by Katrine Wiedemann - Dannish - 2011

I am still looking forward to write my comments on some of my favourite movies in the recent past. Amour staying high on the list. No other movie made me cry, like Amour did. Tears rolled down for long periods, while watching Amour. Still, I have been postponing it. I do not want to postpone at all, my comments on this small gem from Denmark, Viceværten - A Caretakers Tale. Quite a movie, with that rare poetic touch.

Per, a caretaker of an apartment building, is tired of his life. His wife left him, his lowlife son is just out of prison and will move out with his mother and so on. And out of some blue, during his work in an empty flat, he sees a smiling girl on the floor, draped in a transparent cloth, yet naked. He soon finds out that she is not a hooker or an illegal immigrant. May be because of his state of mind, he turns out a pure maochist and rapes her. But to his atmost surprise, realise that the girl loved it. It was never a rape for her. In fact, she is simply craving for more and more sex. 

So here is a girl, who seems to have fallen out of the sky, no talking or walking, just smiling out for more sex. Per soon realises that he might be the luckiest man there is. Some long lost enthusiasm is back on his face and he is unable to cover it from his stupid friends. To cheer up one of them, lonely in life and waiting for a knee surgery, he take his friend to the girl who happily accepts him. Well, the friend comes back to him to say the girl is too special, that ever since his meeting with her, he has lost his knee pain and he will not need to go under knife anymore. His friend is too kind to keep this a secret and wants to help the needy people around. And the girl is happy to accept anybody too.

For the sake of anybody wanting to watch this lovely movie, I won't go further into the story. But here is a gem of a story, a lovely piece of fantasy. Except for sex, it has elements which we would find in a kid's bed time story. I would say, even for an adult, this is a perfect bed time story. And it is a gem of a cinema as well. Wonderful performances, an understanding cinematographer and a brilliant director.

The mythical character of this girl, who keeps on smiling for 99% of the time when camera is anywhere around, can only come out of the most fanatically fantasy loving writer. (She doesn't speak nor can she even walk) Interestingly though, the girl seems to love everything she experiences first. Sex, Cola and the food Per offers her. Adding the healing element to her, was a master stroke and takes the movie into a different level, looking at the ever foolish, spirituality craving, society with a pint of sarcasm. We also look at various aspects of human emotions and mindset through Per. Per's enthusiasm and pride to keep hold of a beautiful young girl who would not ask him questions is unparallelled, told subtly though. 


I tend to forget the names of many movies, its stories and all about it, sometimes even of good ones, within  a few days of watching. Only the most extra ordinary ones tend to stay in my mind. Here is one movie that I will never forget. The innocent smile of this angelic girl, will always live in my heart. For me, this would be definitely one of my all time favourite movie, and will haunt me for long time.

If somebody would have told this story to me, I would not have taken a moment to say, ok that is a French movie. For, often, its the French who have out of the box ideas and thoughts and the means to bring it out into bench mark movies. Viceværten - A Caretakers Tale, can be easily mistaken as a French movie. So in someways I am pleasantly shocked. I have been lucky to have seen some Dannish movies of late and was very impressed with many of them. However, this is really a master piece with some poetic charm.

I would love to send a garland of love and appreciation to the whole crew.
And to Madame Katrine Wiedemann, the wonderful director, I will wash your feet maam. Thank you so much for this movie.

En Familie - A Family

2010 by Pernille Fischer Christensen - Danish movie

We see so many family movies from across the world. There are few actually, which depict a real family. Of course, life in a family is different to each and every family. So it is difficult to say, which is the real cinema of a real family.

Rheinwald family runs a dynasties old bakery. When the father, who manages the business, is cleared of a suspected illness, his loving daughter Ditte, who runs a gallery, decide to take up a new job in New York and wants to move out with her boy friend. But then the father's health fails again.

The beginning of the movie was very charming but later slowly the pace went down, typical of serious art house movies. This is a serious movie about a family, about the struggles within the family, when the central figure is failing.

I especially liked the relationship between Ditte and her father. So were the final scenes of the women taking care of the male body. The movie also reaffirms the fact that it is women who always have to make serious sacrifices when it comes to the matter of a decision making between personal life, career and family.

At the same time, the marriage of the father and the celebrations were telling us clearly what was going to happen next. I did feel that the script writer wasn't sure how next to take the movie to the second half, so went for it this way, the easy way. However, the final scene was really a difference, like a dessert after an intelligentsia meal.

A really serious movie, which has brilliant performances by two actors, Jesper Christernsen as the father and Rene Maria Christensen as Ditte. The former especially, was truly brilliant. Could be a lesson for actors around the world, from popular movies, how to act sick. Brilliant cinematography too. 

Italienesk for Begyndere - Italian for Beginners

2000 by Lone Scherfig

Many years back some University students from Denmark, who after watching a couple of Indian movies with me, which included Lagaan, had told me that they get some very good movies in Danish. It took me long to watch one. I never expected there movies would be like this. If my memory is not outdated, this is my first movie from Denmark and what an experience it has been.

There are a few characters in a region. A Priest who has just lost his wife and is actually filling in for the permanent priest who is on suspension, A hair dresser woman, whose mother is sick and interrupts her work quite often, A very clumsy woman at a bakery, who has an old father who is quite dominant and difficult to manage, A rude manager at a restaurant in a Football stadium, A man who is afraid he is impotent and works in a hotel and a young girl working in the stadium restaurant. All these guys are somewhere around in the nearby streets where we have the Chapel, the hotel, the restaurant, the bakery and a muncipal hall where an Italian language class for beginners is organised by the local council. 

Some pretty ordinary characters in even ordinary circumstances live their routine life in front of the camera for us. The only unique point about all of them are they are loners in some ways. Thats how this movie start, a very slow and uninteresting start though. To be frank, it is quite difficult to pass through those first 10 or 15 minutes. Without any kind of cinematic help the movie jumps on to one of these characters right from the first frame and jumps to all others. It can take us by surprise, in the first few minutes, that what we are seeing is just ordinary life. But slowly but nicely this movie takes us through a great experience. By the end we are sure that we have seen one of the best feel good movies.

I cannot remember a different film which proceeds through so many ordinary characters without any kind of main plot at all. For some time I did think Short Cuts was the closest, but of course not. This is a very different attempt. Even the major catalyst of this movie, the Italian class for beginners is thrown in a very subtle way and it is only with time we see all characters merging in there. In between there are these two very touching moments of an Euthanasia and of two characters realising that they are sisters. I would say those scenes depicts the heights of capturing emotional subtlety in movie making.

This is a really unique movie, a unique way of making a romantic comedy in fact.  May be the most brilliant attempt in celluloid to capture the romance among the most ordinary and imperfect people during our times. I think that's the best way to explain this movie.

I cannot imagine, how they scripted or conceived this idea at all. May be all started from the end just like how the Tamil movie Kalluri was made and built a history for the characters. That is the most probably possibility.

Brilliant movie.