Desperate Times in the Eurozone
Review by Ken Burke Headhunters
A
fascinating Norwegian film about an upper-class art thief whose crimes support his wife’s demanding expectations; marvelous but not for
the faint of heart.
Polisse
A French film about the cops who try to protect abused kids shows that the abuse also rubs off on the adults as they try to navigate their frustrations with endless crime.
A French film about the cops who try to protect abused kids shows that the abuse also rubs off on the adults as they try to navigate their frustrations with endless crime.
OK,
so once you get into to this you’ll realize that I’m lying—somewhat—because
Norway’s not in the Eurozone and this review has nothing to do with the current economic crisis brewing across the Atlantic, but you’ve got to admit that it’s
a catchy title and, anyway, lying is quite appropriate when discussing our
first film, Norwegian Morten Tyldum’s Headhunters
(Hodejegerne, 2011). And it’s not just lying; this film also
delivers deception, theft, murder … plus subtitles. What else could you want? Well, what our protagonist, Roger Brown (How’s that for an unlikely
Norwegian name? But he's played marvelously in both crafty criminal and desperate prey
mode by Aksel Hennie.), wants is money, a steady stream of it to support the
lavish lifestyle that he’s fashioned for himself and wife Diana (Synnøve Macody
Lund). You’d think that he’s
comfortably in the Scandinavian 1% already with his successful career as a
corporate headhunter, but to maintain the material world that he’s created to
appeal to Diana’s tastes he’s constantly—but unbeknownst to her—on the verge of
bankruptcy. Thus, he’s fashioned a
parallel life as an art thief, stealing precious works right off the walls of
clients while they’re away at the interviews that Roger has scheduled for
them. This is where Diana’s career
as a gallery owner comes in handy because it keeps Roger up on what will be
useful black-market deals and gives him connections to skillful reproductions
so that he can carefully substitute lookalikes in the original frames leaving
the rightful owners completely unaware of the hoax. And how does he even get into to their dwellings, you may
ask? Again our master plotter has
the perfect accomplice (but this one’s in on the swindles) in Ove Kjikerud
(Eivind Sander), who works for the seemingly ubiquitous security company conveniently
guarding everyone’s belongings so he just shuts off the alarm when Roger needs
entry. Clearly, this guy’s got
everything under control—except his 5’ 6” height which drives his underlying
inferiority complex that keeps him racing ahead of Diana’s desires lest she
leave him for greener, taller pastures to match her own striking stature.
Competition
for Diana arrives anyway in the imposing form of Clas Greve (Nikolaj
Coster-Waldau), the young but retired CEO of neighboring Copenhagen’s HOTE
Corp., who’s recruited by Roger for another top job at Norway’s Pathfinder Corp.
but finds a path to Diana, which Roger discovers accidently while stealing a
valuable Rubens painting from Clas’ almost-deserted Danish apartment (where the
only piece of furniture left seems to be the bed where Roger finds Diana’s cell
phone when attempting to call her from the scene of his latest crime). From there things unravel quickly for
Roger whose mysterious vow to Diana (he doesn’t acknowledge the affair but just
acts suddenly sullen toward her) that Clas will never find work in Norway
results in unleashing the fury of his antagonist, an extremely dangerous
situation because Clas has special-ops military training along with expertise
in surveillance and tracking.
Before Roger barely knows what’s starting to hit him he finds Ove dead
in Roger’s car, still in the closed garage, and the hunt is on for our
now-terrified art thief in a masterful suspense tale that conjures up the best
of Hitchcock films (for well constructed plots and success with linking the
audience to the same tensions felt by the characters), Joel and Ethan Coen’s
(although Ethan is uncredited on the original film) 1996 Fargo (both for the use of expected, shocking events and the link
between Fargo’s setting in the land
of U.S. Scandinavian immigrants and their distant European relations in Headhunters), and the perils of Lisbeth
Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy (appropriate, given that, like his Swedish counterpart who was
constantly on the run while needing to use a trove of survival skills, Roger
also begins life in an internationally-known novel, a Norwegian one written by
Jo Nesbø). Headhunters quickly becomes a thrill-a-second experience,
masterfully structured so that you never know what to expect next nor whom to trust
nor even what to believe that you’re seeing on screen.
Among
the first of many surprises is that Ove isn’t dead (yet), which Roger discovers
when trying to dump his body into a lake, but the poison from a tiny dart left
in the car for Roger to sit on is still causing physical anguish so when Roger
takes him back to Ove’s apartment things get even crazier quickly as Ove pulls
a gun (one of many around his lodging; he’s clearly a guy who fancies guns as
needed protection but also as a source of sexual stimulation, as we see in one
scene where he and his Russian prostitute girlfriend enjoy shooting in each
other’s general vicinity while running around nude—Iike I implied early on,
this isn’t your run-of-the-mill thriller), demanding to be taken to an emergency
room. In attempting to defend
himself, Roger grabs another weapon, accidently kills Ove, then takes Ove’s
clothes (throwing his own into the lake; at least something got properly
disposed of in this film) and car, drives to a country cabin where he hopes to
hole up, but finds that Clas is hot on his trail. From this point things go decidedly downhill for Roger,
especially in a scene that involves hiding beneath the surface in a well-used
outhouse (Get the picture? If not,
let me refer you to a couple of other “pictures” with similar sewage moments: Trainspotting [1996] and Slumdog Millionaire [2008], in which
Danny Boyle showed us the less-than-finer side of life. Tlydum goes him one better by forcing
Roger to wallow beneath the residue until Clas moves on—at least he didn’t add
a “movement” of his own to contribute further to Roger’s predicament.). Roger must also defend himself from
Clas’ marauding dog, then temporarily escape this countryside chaos on a
tractor, but there are worse punishments awaiting involving assault by
18-wheeler as you can see in the trailer clips noted below.
However,
all of Roger’s previous travails just deepen the difficulty of his situation as
he turns first for help to his own mistress, Lotte (Julie Ølgaard—Again I ask,
how did someone with a name like Roger Brown wander into this Scandinavian cast
of characters and actors?), but she turns out to be merely a strategy that Clas
was using to get to Roger—as was Diana—because Clas has his own problems with
his Danish company (turns out he’s not retired after all) and needed
encouragement for Roger to steer him to the Norwegian job as an opportunity to
bail himself out. Once again,
treachery escalates, weapons swirl around, then Lotte bites the dust, leaving
Roger with only one hope—Diana—assuming she can be trusted not to betray him
again, or maybe he’ll have to find some way to go it alone with no allies; I’m
going to leave that for you to discover in hopes that your curiosity will
compel you to locate and see this film.
You may think that I’ve already given away far too much about how this
compelling narrative twists and turns your expectations and your stomach (but
here’s my periodic reminder about ongoing spoiler alerts that are the nature of
these retrospective reviews, as noted on our opening ABOUT THE BLOG page);
however, even if you think I’ve ruined your chances to properly see and
appreciate Headhunters (in
retrospect, a marvelous pun of a title, given how there are more vicious crimes
being committed here than are common even in the fierce world of corporate
manipulations) in the near future on DVD (sadly, you won’t have many chances in
theatres, except for those of you in large metropolitan areas and even there
you’d better move quickly), I can assure you that there are still important, unanticipated
zigzags to come before it’s all over so I’ll just leave it at that, also leaving
you with a wholehearted recommendation to find this film however you can and
indulge yourself in it along with a hearty dinner of vodka and lutefisk (go easy
on the lye, though). Actually, I’d
advise seeing the film first; after you encounter the lutefisk you may not be
able to concentrate on anything else until your body recuperates.
Moving
more accurately into the Eurozone, to France specifically, we’ll find a squad
of police detectives in Maïwenn (Le Besco)'s Polisse (2011) not always able to concentrate on their work
because: (a) it’s so intensely demanding as they try to protect the children of
Paris from various kidnappers and deviants, including, more often than not, the
kids’ own families or other trusted adults such as teachers, and (b) these cops
seem to spend virtually all of their waking hours with each other (including
relationships where they shouldn’t be getting so close with various others in
their squad) so that even if the job doesn’t create tension this particular
minute one of their comrades will, just because they never get a break from
their constant interpersonal interactions. You’d find that “reputation” is a key word in my undisclosed
finale of Headhunters, related to a
Norwegian cop who’s trying to resolve the sordid circumstances generated by
Roger and Clas, just as “reputation” is a key concern for the Child Protective
Unit police in Polisse (spelled the
way the kids often mistakenly do it), but in this film it’s not so much about
personal pride in making sense of a messy mystery as it is protective pride
that every heinous act against a child that is prosecuted gives hope that the
next twisted perp will reconsider and not harm the innocent and defenseless
among us.
The concept of “reputation”
does enter into this form of police work in another manner at one point,
though, in terms of how a few of our beleaguered cops risk theirs by letting
down their usual gruff guard when a teenage girl admits that she performed
fellatio on some boys so that her girlfriend would return her cell phone (that's not what's pictured in this photo, but I couldn't find one of that specific scene). When they try to impress upon her the
lack of personal dignity that such an act indicates she says “It was an iPhone!”;
the cops just can’t contain their hysterical laughter, finally allowing
themselves to increase the humor of the situation by asking her what she’d do
if it were a laptop (or something like that; I was laughing too hard at the situation to be able to take very precise notes). They know
they’re out of line, and often on thin ice with their stern, rule-bound
supervisor, but at this point they just can’t control themselves as their
infectious guffaws provide relief for them and us both (the girl is a bit
perplexed by the whole thing, although more likely about why they’d even need
to ask her what she’d do to protect her social network lifeline than being
angry at them for their unprofessional responses). This is a rare moment of levity in a very dark film, though,
where the horrific abuses don’t have to be graphically shown to be understood;
the atrocities resonate from the physical and emotional scars that remain in
the withdrawn faces and bodies of the abused kids and the hostile actions of
those teens who are instigating their own violence on their peers or on
themselves as a result of the lives they’re stuck with (including a birth scene
so tragic that I just can’t reveal more, in hopes that you do see it for
yourselves), existences that seem to have emerged from the depths of the
crapper that Headhunters’ Roger had
to hide in. One child regains some
dignity and self-acceptance at the end of Polisse,
but the other event his gymnastics triumph is intercut with shows us how easily
lives will be ruined in this never-ending assault on those who are driven to
excess by the thoughtless excesses of others. Polisse forces us
to wallow in the shit of human unkindness and the non-generosity of strangers
(even when the kid thinks he or she knows the assailant, as with their own parents), and
you’ll probably feel the need for an emotional/spiritual bath of some kind
after you see it, but it’s done so well as to justify what it puts you through
just to see that one boy finding himself again at the end, despite the
previous horrors he endured. Not
everyone else survives so well in Polisse,
but if watching the film feels a little like walking on hot coals at least your
feet feel a bit better connected to the Earth when the journey of the story is
complete, with our souls a little tougher as well, slowly strengthened like the
cops through the challenges they must endure as the next section of hot coals
pops up around the corner.
If
you’re interested in knowing more about Headhunters
here are some suggested links:
If
you’re interested in knowing more about Polisse
here are some suggested links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_xAUZKRH8U
(this is one of those sites that supposedly lets you watch the whole film for
free; just click on the link below the video)
We encourage you to look over our home page (ABOUT THE BLOG), found as
the first one in our December 2011 postings, to get more information on what
we’re doing and why we’re doing it.
You’ll also see our general Spoiler Alert warning that reminds you we’ll
be discussing whatever plot details are needed for our comments so please be
aware of this when reading any of our reviews and be aware of our formatting
forewarning about inconsistencies among web browser software which we do our
best to correct but may still cause some visual problems beyond our control.
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