What I Think About Movies I've Seen

Robert Hansen (played by Jakob Cedergren, who looks like he could easily be a brother to Ben or Casey Affleck) has just become the marshal for a very remote town in Denmark. People have their own way of doing things there, from the way they hang out their laundry to the way they dole out their justice. One day, a woman named Ingerlise comes into his office to tell Robert that her husband Jorgen is beating her. She doesn't want to file a report or get external authorities involved, but she is scared of what might happen to her or their daughter Dorthe if it continues. When she is found dead a couple of days later, everyone knows Jorgen did it, but it's not quite that simple.

This is a dark and complex movie, both thematically and visually. The sky is always overcast and gray, nearly all the colors are grays or earth tones, and there is some very ominous imagery. The only real color shown is Dorthe's red dress, in a manner somewhat reminiscent of Schindler's List. The dialog is in Danish with English subtitles, and the text was a little fuzzy in my screening but I think that might have been a problem with the theater since I saw the same problem during the credits, although the picture itself seemed pretty clear. Nevertheless, it wasn't too distracting and I didn't find it hard to follow along.

I really enjoy the story, the acting, and nearly everything else about this movie. I'm not sure why, but it's taking some time for it to fully sink in, and I kind of like that. I've wanted to see it ever since I first saw the trailer a couple of months ago, and I was definitely not disappointed.