tisdag 30 september 2014

The Killing - too noir for this Scandinavian

Bucked up by the success with Unit One, I finally got round to borrowing the acclaimed The Killing, series one, from my local DVD shop. I was convinced that I was hardened enough to try more Scandi noir. Except, oh dear. Grim though its cases often were, Unit One has done nothing to prepare me for the relentless gloom that is The Killing.

It's not, I think, the sheer beastliness of the committed crime, or the protracted suffering the luckless victim - a pretty, clever, sunny teenage girl - went through that proves that little bit too much for me, though it doesn't help. It's the wallowing in the grief of her family. These scenes are convincing and well played, but who wants to watch scenarios like these? For instance, we witness the girl's parents having to tell her small brothers of her death, and later the parents catch a glimpse of the horrible crime-scene pictures, which makes them start to realise just how many traumatic facts the police are keeping from them. The Killing seems to be a crime series made by people who hate the normal crime series-viewing public: we are being punished for our morbid interest in murders. Look, it seems to say, this is what murder is like in real life: it shatters lives.

Except, this isn't real life, is it? It's still fiction. It's a "thriller" made, one supposes, in order to entertain viewers. It's not an instruction video for grief counsellors. I fail to see why glum offerings like these are considered more worthwhile by fastidious critics than golden-agey whodunnits. Why is it more moral to revel in a nasty case like this than in a cleaner bump-on-the-head murder? It's hard not to feel that The Killing indulges bloodlust while simultaneously wagging a finger at it.

In Unit One, a kindly senior police officer has a conversation with a girl he's protecting, and she asks what murderers are like. He answers that in most cases, they're "just like you and me". Only, there is "something not quite right" which makes them cross the line and kill. (As it happens, in this particular case the murderer is a sadistic loon very far from the norm, but never mind.) I don't know if it's true, but as a working hypothesis it works well. I like a really juicy motive in a murder mystery, which makes me wonder if, in the same circumstances, I would be tempted. If the murderer is clearly a psycho, which must be the case in The Killing, then some of the interest of the murder case is lost. There can be no question of someone "just snapping".

That said, I want to know who did it now, so I'll probably watch this series until the end, even though I won't be giving series two and three a go. It's well made - the Danes are clearly good at this sort of stuff. Sarah Lund is a charismatic lead, and I'm mildly interested in what happens to her when her petulant Swedish boyfriend ditches her, which is surely only a question of time (Swedes are rarely good news in Danish series, it seems). Will sparks fly between her and her new Dirty Harryish colleague? Or maybe the smooth politician is, for once, a good guy who's in with a chance?

But there are limits to my interest. If Lund's fate is undecided at the end of the series, I'll not sit through another case as gruelling as this just to know what happens to her. Her sweaters really are nice, though.            

onsdag 17 september 2014

I fancy a villain, who's played by an actor, who also plays...

Unit One, then, aka Mordkommissionen, aka Rejseholdet. I'm not going to blog at length about this series, as I suspect that not many outside of Scandinavia have seen it, and as it's nearly fifteen years old, even those who know it might not remember it well. However, I see that it's available on English DVD and can highly recommend it. I'm not usually that wild about police procedurals, but this had me hooked - and not only because of the cute coppers. 

Unit One can serve as a starting point, though, for some thoughts on a state of mind I'm afflicted by all too often. I call it the "I danced with a man who danced with a girl" syndrome, after the song about the society girl who was in raptures because she'd danced with a man, who danced with a girl, who danced with the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VIII). Briefly, this syndrome entails warming to  - or even fancying - characters whom you might not otherwise have noticed, because they happen to be played by the same actor who has succesfully played your favourite character elsewhere. In my case, the favourite character in question is invariably a villain.

Taking the first step towards this odd sort of behaviour is common enough. Here another syndrome comes into play, the Lucky Luke audience syndrome, which I think I've mentioned before. In one Lucky Luke album, a group of players tours the Wild West with a lurid melodrama called The White Knight. The audiences in the small towns they visit always mix up fact and fiction, treating the hero of the play as a hero in real life while cold-shouldering the villain actor ("child-murderers don't get served here", one barman tells him). As it turns out, if I remember rightly, all the players are crooks. The point is, we all know the Lucky Luke audience approach is idiotic and unsophisticated but, however hard you try to tell yourself that a well-played character and his/her actor are completely separate persons, it's difficult to make the distinction completely. I mean, they look the same, they sound the same... I for one, having other tastes than Wild West audiences, always feel more warmly towards an actor after he's made a particularly good job of playing a villain. It can lead to some seriously silly behaviour - as when I watch an interview with an actor gushing "oooh, he's so nice", when my interest in him rests on him playing a character who's not nice. Strangely enough, I want villain actors to be perfect darlings off-stage, and am disappointed if the opposite is in any way hinted (that doesn't happen often: villain actors are for the most part character actors, who know how to behave). Daft as the LLA syndrome is, I think it's OK to indulge in it as long as the effects are benign. When you find that you don't like an able actor just because he/she's played a character you don't approve of, that's when you should rein in and give yourself a talking-to.

While the equating of a character with an actor is fairly widespread, I wonder how many people are crazy enough to take it a step further, like I do, and extend extra sympathy towards other characters played by the same actors who play my villain fancies. This behaviour was particularly marked during my Bulstrode phase, when most characters played by the late Peter Jeffrey (well, he was the definitive Bulstrode) could count on my support. Of course The Grand Turk would have deserved to win in The Adventures of Baron von Münchhausen. What was Emma Peel thinking of, honey-trapping Prendergast? She was asking for a good scare, the cow. As for the lecherous politician Eric in Yes, Minister - well, all I can say is, I understood "the shady lady from Argentina" perfectly.

In the case of Unit One, Thomas la Cour (I know), played by Lars Brygmann, and Allan Fischer, played by Mads Mikkelsen, are very likeable and attractive characters. I don't think I would have been half as interested in them, though, if the actors who play them wouldn't have gone on to play ace villains. Similarly, though Fischer is the funny one, I prefer the squirrel-eyed la Cour, simply because Brygmann played Höxenhaven, who trumps Mikkelsen's Bond villain in the baddie stakes. Yep, it's a bit weird. But translate the situation to heroes, and at least some people might recognise the syndrome. Is it inconceivable that you would watch a film simply because "Matthew" or "Mr Darcy" was in it - and then root for his character?          

måndag 8 september 2014

On a Beauman bender

I'm a bit impressed by my 2013 and 2012 selves. How did I manage to produce 3 blog posts in this, the cruellest month work-wise (or at least one of them)? September is survival month (as is October, for that matter), and that has its effect on TV and book consumption as well. I tend to stick with what I know I like, which means there's not much difference in my reading/TV watching pattern from one week to the next. And that in turn means fewer blogging themes.

This autumn has been extreme, though. TV-wise, I'm completely hooked on a Danish series from 2000 called Rejseholdet in its original language (no, me neither), Mordkommissionen (The Murder Squad) in Swedish and Unit One in English, and I watch little else. More of this at another time, I expect: suffice to say, for now, that it features both Lars "Höx" Brygmann and Mads Mikkelsen, playing - as it happens - perfectly decent coppers. Book-wise, I'm reading through the back catalogue of Sally Beauman. Well, when someone writes a trilogy, it makes sense to read all the books in a row, right?

I have to confess, though it really is her "early work", that I still like Destiny and Dark Angel best. Beauman is a master storyteller, and the epic family saga is the ideal showcase for her. The Language of Love is also a family saga, but it is shorter than the early novels and considerably more melancholy, as the focus of the story is a grim tragedy (far worse than the admittedly bloody end of Shawcross in Dark Angel: honestly, even I, villain-lover that I am, thought he had it coming). The ending, though not suicide-inducing, does not have the same uplift as Destiny's and Dark Angel's either. The Language of Love feels like an attempt by Beauman to move upmarket and show she can do more than just feelgood stuff (not that everything is peaches and cream in the early novels). I must admit I prefer cheaper markets.

The Lovers and Liars trilogy from the 90s, by contrast, feels like a move downmarket compared to Beauman's two first novels. These books are a mixture of romance and thriller, and the genres do not gel a hundred per cent. The first novel, called Lovers and Liars (I wonder who thinks of Beauman's titles? They sound a bit publisher-fabricated) centres on a supposed sex scandal, which is a passably juicy theme, but novel two, Danger Zones, introduces plot-lines about drugs and a disturbed youth who absconds with impressionable adolescent girls - not that fun, in fact. Novel three, Sextet, starts promisingly, though, as it's set in the world of film.

The common denominator in these books, aside from the thrillerish tone, are the protagonists, journalist Genevieve "Gini" Hunter and photographer Pascal Lamartine. These ex-lovers meet up after fifteen years to work on a story in novel one. Does the old love linger? Wanna bet? A complication in the form of features editor Rowland McGuire, who is an almost ludicrous compilation of supposedly attractive male qualities, appears in novel two, where Gini's friend Lindsay also starts to play a larger part in proceedings. Sextet seems to focus more on Lindsay than on Gini so far, which is good news, as Lindsay is the more likeable character. A fashion editor, she is warm, rueful and not as full of her own importance as Gini, Pascal and occasionally Rowland. These three share a belief in journalism - and in Pascal's case, photography - as something that can make the world a better place. I'm not sure I don't find idealistic hacks more of a pain than the cynical just-looking-for-a-good-story ones. The idealists are almost as ready to print dirt about someone, only they will also moralise about their victims in a way the cynics don't. Granted, though, that once in a while an idealist can be made to stay his or her hand when a cynic would push ruthlessly on.

So far, I remain somewhat unconvinced by the trilogy's thriller element - yes, there are exciting scenes, but thriller plots aren't what Beauman does best. The solutions to the mysteries in Lovers and Liars felt a bit throwaway, when you thought you'd get a well-reasoned explanation of various intrigues. At the end, it almost became a conspiracy theory thriller. I prefer Beauman's epic tales - which doesn't mean I don't enjoy the Lovers and Liars trilogy very much. But next time I read a Beauman, I hope it's a family saga - and a not too sad one.