The
Guilty (2018): Written by Gustav Moeller and Emil
Nygaard Albertsen, directed by Gustav Moeller.
Starring: Jakob
Cedergren. Running Time: 85 minutes.
Rating:
4/4
The Guilty, from Danish director Gustav
Moeller, is a case study on how to draw cinematic greatness out of the most
barebone of building blocks It is
minimalist in the extreme, yet despite that- or, perhaps, very well because of
it- it is one of the best films in a year filled with great films, precisely
because of how masterfully it uses every shot, every line of dialogue, and
every twitch of the main character’s face to build an entire world out of a
headset, a desktop, and a flashing red light.
Utilizing a set of just two rooms (one of which is almost always in
darkness) and only one on-screen character (the handful of other named players
are only heard over the phone, and even then only sporadically), Asger, The Guilty takes a deceptively deep dive
into the ways our biases and bigotries- about gender, ethnicity, mental health,
law enforcement, and more- can color our responses and reactions to the world,
especially in times of crisis, and how costly that can end up being.
Asger
has been shifted to the graveyard shift at the emergency call center, fielding
calls as they come in and forwarding them to the response units in the
field. There is a very specific reason
for this, but it is only gradually that we learn why. That something isn’t right is clear from the
start, though, as he clearly loathes being stuck on desk duty, enough that he
can’t just forward a call and move on; he has to comment to the caller on
where, why, or how they screwed up, and even after forwarding the calls he
tries to tell the receiving unit what they should/shouldn’t do to handle each
case.
Thus,
we know right from the start that Asger is, in part, a rather egoistic prick
with a massive superiority complex, but as with everything else in the film, this
is a bit of a feint. Each initial impression-
the audience’s of Asger, Asger’s of other people, and of the nature of right
and wrong, lawful and unlawful- proves to be slightly off in some way, just one
small part of a larger, far more messy and complex truth. As the film is ostensibly about Asger coming
to terms with his own shortcomings as a cop and what is required of him to make
things better, so too does it challenge the active and attentive viewer to
reconsider their own previous assumptions about life’s muddled good/bad
spectrum.
The
reckoning that comes is heralded by a strange call that comes in from a woman
in distress, alluding that she might have been kidnapped and taken away from
her children. Asger gathers what information
he can from her and forwards it to the local department, but there’s something
about the whole situation he just can’t shake.
Soon, instead of waiting for other calls to come in, he’s jotting down
notes, doing database searches, making his own deductions about what he thinks
is happening, and tries to badger officers from several different departments
into chasing down his leads.
Though
this is a Danish film set in Denmark, and thus no perfect analogue to policing
in the United States, in so many ways the movie feels like a thematic
commentary on the struggles of modern policing.
Asger is not a deranged, violent, heartless bastard- he operates out of
a genuine belief in the existence of right and wrong, a desire to help victims
of crime, and of the necessity of enforcing what’s right even if it’s
uncomfortable- but he has never before tried to really consider how his own weaknesses
can lead to him making things worse, rather than better. It’s almost as if the film is trying to offer
an answer to the bitter question over how someone in law enforcement can seek
to be a good person and a good cop without falling into the trap of simply
reinforcing existing inequalities and meting out violence to those least
deserving of it. I would be absolutely
fascinating to watch the movie again with some American police officers and
hear their thoughts on it afterward, though for obvious reasons I can’t see
myself getting that chance anytime soon.
The
film is a slow burn, but paces and builds itself effectively with each passing
minute of its runtime. No shot, no
second of filming, no bit of dialogue is wasted, and Jakob Cedergren gives one
of the year’s great understated performances in allowing us to see Asger’s thinking
change, bit by bit and little by little, until a final revelatory moment where
he is forced to confront all at once something he’d desperately been trying to
avoid for a long, long time. The film
has been making its rounds internationally and may be shortlisted for the
Oscars next year, but there’s no telling where distribution will take it, so
make sure to see this one however you can as soon as you can.
-Noah Franc
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