The title, In Order of Disappearance, tells us a lot about Norwegian Director Hans Petter Moland’s (A Somewhat Gentle Man, Aberdeen) black comedy/crime/thriller, from a script by Danish writer Kim Fupz Aakeson (A Somewhat Gentle Man).
It tells us that the filmmakers are playing with words like they will be playing with moods, emotions and genres. It also tells us that a lot of people will be killed off in a linear fashion before life in Nils Dickman’s (Stellan Skarsgård) snow-covered community can return to normal.
Moland’s juggling act is supported by a fine cast, led by 63-year-old Skarsgård (Mama Mia!, The Hunt for Red October, Breaking the Waves). Skarsgård is Sweden’s answer to Liam Neeson – he was even considered for the title role in Schindler’s List – a big man in his early sixties who can play an action hero as well as anyone.
As in Neeson’s ‘Taken’ franchise, Skarsgård is after the men who took his only son. Equally good is Bruno Ganz (Downfall, Wings of Desire) almost unrecognisable as the Serbian Godfather called Papa. Both actors play very different characters who are united in their determination to avenge the deaths of their son and grandson respectively.
Nils Dickman is giving a short acceptance speech at the Citizen of the Year ceremony when his son is bundled into a car by a gang of thugs who mistakenly believe he is stealing from their illegal drug shipments to the cargo airport where he works. Dickman is being recognised for his snow-ploughing services to the community. Even in the worst weather, he is out ploughing. Dickman tells his audience: ‘it feels odd getting an award for something you enjoy doing.’
When the police inform Nils and his wife that their son was found dead on a bench, a victim of drug abuse, Nils does not believe it. The police refuse to investigate what to them is another teenager who has overdosed and show no sympathy for the clueless parents. As mild-mannered Nils, still in denial, sets out to find and kill his son’s murderer, his wife leaves him.
As the body count rises, so do the number of links in the long chain that eventually leads him to ‘The Count’, a handsome, health-freak and flamboyant psychopath named Greven (Pal Sverre Hagen). After three of his top men disappear, The Count is convinced that the ‘Albanians’, with whom he shares the Oslo drug market, have violated the arrangement. Rather stupidly, he nails one to a road sign as an example. Unfortunately, he picks Papa’s (Ganz) grandson, and Papa wants the Count’s angelic son in return.
After each death, Moland breaks the fourth wall by inserting a plaque on the screen with a cross and the dead man’s name on it. He establishes intense scenes, only to undermine them with a dryness that strips them of emotion. This style, and Skarsgård’s dead-pan transformation from Citizen of the Year to accomplished serial killer, leave little doubt that this is a dark comedy.
The prejudices and cultural observations of the Norwegian villains and their Serbian counterparts add to the humour. No nationality is spared. ‘In Norway, a character laments, ‘if kids disappear there are always some obnoxious parents looking for them.’ Nils might not be the most obnoxious, but he is certainly the most lethal.
The Count is so culturally insensitve that he continually refers to the Serbians as Albanians. One of his more enlightened staff, his gay chauffeur Aron Horowitz (Jakob Oftebro), corrects him once too often. Yes, in this macho world it is a gay relationship that succeeds in undermining the Count’s treacherous hold on his men.
When Nils visits his estranged brother for help his brother directs him to the ‘Chinaman’ to kill the Count. His brother has married an Asian woman who watches television all day. The Serbs are not spared, of course, as they clearly are unable to integrate into the country. There is a joke about what the name ‘Dickman’ means in their language, and a pantomime involving a severed head in a box. Two Serbian lackeys are fascinated by a woman picking up her dog’s poo, and wonder, ‘What does she do with it later?’
You might find the seemingly endless series of killings and commemorative title cards repetitive and overwrought, but the rich tableau of zany characters and Skarsgård’s and Ganz’s charisma offer more sustained entertainment.
Joyce Glasser -MT film reviewer
