It was a Saturday evening in January 2011 and with a mountain of ironing to do I was waiting for the iron to heat up and turned on the TV to watch while I completed the hated chore. I had heard that there was a new Danish crime drama starting but that it was going to be about twenty episodes long. as intriguing as it sounded I had decided i couldn’t commit myself to that much viewing.
So I was standing, iron in hand, when the opening scenes of ‘Forbrydelsen’ started; the English title is ‘The Killing’ and the series stars : Sofie Gråbøl. An hour later I was still standing, iron in hand, not a single thing ironed, mouth open, utterly gripped by the first episode… and utterly hooked! There are several story-lines, but the main narrative is the efforts of the police to unravel and solve the mystery of the murder of a young girl. Sofie Gråbøl plays the part of the lead detective, Sarah Lund, and she is excellent, as are every single other person involved in the series. The acting is superb and faultless, the background music is subtle, effective and a lesson to all programme makers who use background music, the camera work heightens the suspense, the shots of faces, the length of time the camera is on someone, the lighting, the sound, the everything…every single thing is amazing. Even the tragedy of the ending,or the several tragedies of the endings of the different storyline is subtly and cleverly worked. I can’t understand Danish so I had to read the subtitles, but the acting was just so good I almost didn’t need the subtitles to understand what was going on.
When the second series was broadcast I almost didn’t want to watch it, unable to believe that it could be as first as the good. I did watch it… it was as good,although the first series is my favourite. The third series arrived in Britain and I missed several episodes and decided that I wouldn’t try and catch up, but wait until it was repeated… which it hasn’t been. However, I have treated myself to the box set! Now my only decision is whether to watch the whole thing from the beginning, the first episode of season one, or whether to watch season three which I missed and then go back to seasons one and two…
Lois Elsden 