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Jan. 18th, 2010 08:48 pmKenneth Branagh is in this BBC detective series called Wallander, based on a popular series of Swedish novels. Like most British detective series, it's not what we on this side of the Atlantic would call a series as much as it is a series of made-for-TV movies.
Also unlike most American police procedurals, Wallander isn't really as much about the various murders as much as it is about the slow and painful disintegration of the lead character's life. He's obsessed, depressed and occasionally suicidal, angry, an insomniac, a diabetic with a terrible diet and poor personal hygiene (in one awkwardly hilarious scene he locks his office door, takes his shirt off and wipes his armpits with the drapes). His wife leaves him, he ignores his loving daughter for months at a time, he forgets his Alzheimer's-stricken father at a hospital to chase a hot lead. At one point, he investigates the suicide of a colleague and it isn't until most of the way through the investigation that he finds out that that he was the dead man's best friend. His friends and family reach out but he pushes them away.
Despite all of his misbehaviour he's not bad person, but rather just the opposite. What makes him such a compelling character, as well at once an excellent and terrible homicide detective, is that he's an extremely compassionate, empathetic human being. Whenever he sees a murder victim's body, there are no David Caruso-style wisecracks over the corpse. Rather, it's clear that he feels intense personal distress, palpable physical and emotional pain, and it's this consuming anguish that drives him to be an obsessive and unrelenting investigator. At one point he kills a murderer in clear cut self-defense, and spends the next six months on sick leave, drinking himself into a stupor out of remorse at taking a human life.
Branagh, pale and puffy and perpetually unshaved, plays it all with a slow-motion, dogged shuffle and the occasional flash of violent frustration, a cross between a broken-down prizefighter and a smouldering trash fire. It's really an amazing performance, like a Picasso done up in shades of blue only instead of blue, Branagh's palette is a series of variations on the theme of anguish.
I should also note that besides Branagh, the ever-reliable David Warner does yeoman's duty as Wallander's difficult, increasingly-senile father, and I'm not sure who the cinematographer is but s/he's also done an outstanding job. The camerawork reminds me a bit of Brick in its framing -- it's austere and beautiful and depressing all at the same time.
At very least I think that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
babyraven and feanor1138 will really like this series, so should they read this I recommend it to them without reservation. The rest of you could do a lot worse than to give it a try as well, though I know your tastes less well and so I don't know if you'll like it as much as I did.
Also unlike most American police procedurals, Wallander isn't really as much about the various murders as much as it is about the slow and painful disintegration of the lead character's life. He's obsessed, depressed and occasionally suicidal, angry, an insomniac, a diabetic with a terrible diet and poor personal hygiene (in one awkwardly hilarious scene he locks his office door, takes his shirt off and wipes his armpits with the drapes). His wife leaves him, he ignores his loving daughter for months at a time, he forgets his Alzheimer's-stricken father at a hospital to chase a hot lead. At one point, he investigates the suicide of a colleague and it isn't until most of the way through the investigation that he finds out that that he was the dead man's best friend. His friends and family reach out but he pushes them away.
Despite all of his misbehaviour he's not bad person, but rather just the opposite. What makes him such a compelling character, as well at once an excellent and terrible homicide detective, is that he's an extremely compassionate, empathetic human being. Whenever he sees a murder victim's body, there are no David Caruso-style wisecracks over the corpse. Rather, it's clear that he feels intense personal distress, palpable physical and emotional pain, and it's this consuming anguish that drives him to be an obsessive and unrelenting investigator. At one point he kills a murderer in clear cut self-defense, and spends the next six months on sick leave, drinking himself into a stupor out of remorse at taking a human life.
Branagh, pale and puffy and perpetually unshaved, plays it all with a slow-motion, dogged shuffle and the occasional flash of violent frustration, a cross between a broken-down prizefighter and a smouldering trash fire. It's really an amazing performance, like a Picasso done up in shades of blue only instead of blue, Branagh's palette is a series of variations on the theme of anguish.
I should also note that besides Branagh, the ever-reliable David Warner does yeoman's duty as Wallander's difficult, increasingly-senile father, and I'm not sure who the cinematographer is but s/he's also done an outstanding job. The camerawork reminds me a bit of Brick in its framing -- it's austere and beautiful and depressing all at the same time.
At very least I think that
babyraven and feanor1138 will really like this series, so should they read this I recommend it to them without reservation. The rest of you could do a lot worse than to give it a try as well, though I know your tastes less well and so I don't know if you'll like it as much as I did.
