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"The Guilty" | Enroute to redemption

 10 Aug 2021 5:35 PM GMT  |  Mpost

Enroute to redemption

The Guilty, the debut feature of writer-director, Gustav Moller, wisely transpires a real-time thriller into a new genre of a single-setter cinema. It takes place in two rooms of a police headquarter in Copenhagen. Most of the action happens on phone where all other characters, excepting the caller have their aural presence. The reveals and twists in the screenplay, co-written by Moller and Emil Nygaard delivers a nerve-racking blow to the gut.

Flawed police officer Asger Holm is entangled in a legal case and is supposed to appear before the court for a hearing next day. The police officer is serving penance in an emergency call center. Iben Ostergard makes a distress call and the police officer immediately enters a race against time to save the woman in danger. A futile attempt to track down her partner, having a past criminal record unfolds many surprising layers of characters which not only frustrates the protector but reduces the audience to passive consumers in no time. In the end, Asger’s error in judgments and self-assured hubris make him realize his own guilt which makes him more guilty.

Jacob Cedergren’s tinderbox of a performance with his stilly eyes, trembling fingers accentuates the brusque police officer Asger’s anger, exasperation, failure and ultimate realization. If Cedergren shoulders all the loads in the film, the voice performance of Iben by Jessica Dinnage is equally powerful through Iben’s characteristic tenderness, vulnerability, terror, hopelessness and frenzy of emotions. Jasper J Spanning’s strikingly close focus of camera plays out the drama in the face of the officer. Coleman and Hesselager’s well-crafted sound design, especially the desperate moments of silence and immobility keep the audience on the edge of their seats. Moller’s success lies in his idea of involving the audience with ‘unseen’ like Steven Knight’s film Locke and Joel Schumacher’s Telephone Booth. For its incredible cinematic experiment, the Danish drama gets a prestigious entry in 91st Academy Award nomination in the Best Foreign Film category in 2019.

However, since the audience is made a consumer here, they are, much to their liking, trapped to watch Asger as a nice and a sensitive human being, but from a specialist’s point of view the myriad errors are uncalled for and should not have taken place professionally. Yet, this 85-minute potboiler is worth watching when you almost forget to breathe. mpost

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