This TV movie, "pilot" of the Wallander series, came on DVD with German Vanity Fair, 18 Sep 2008. I found it quite intense in some points, and questionable in others.
Good points first. This is "Wallander", but less Kurt than his daughter Linda (like the book, as far as Wikipedia tells - I only read Firewall). Conflict of generations is a natural consequence, and the father/child relation is reflected at least twice (the baby by artificial insemination, which later redoes Moses, and the unborn child in Anna, who again misses her long-lost father). Then we have the Christian fundamentalist sect, which uses terror (starting with setting swans afire) against what they consider sin: abortion, artificial insemination, gay marriage. A link to Jonestown is repeated multiple times, but wasn't so plausible to me.
And that leads us to more implausibilities. Coincidence just happens too often. Linda returns to Ystad, can't stay with her estranged pa, so moves in with Anna and meets the fatherless baby at a spoiled beach picknick. And gets to meet every point in this almost geometrical construction.
It somehow serves the story-line, but is it plausible to snipe-shoot the driver of a cruising van loaded with explosives? (The van stops nicely, ready for later timed explosion in open field.) I give this 7/10, partly because of nice Swedish details, and memorable scenes like the hanging in the church or the gay wedding, but at the end I'm not convinced - too much geometry, too little glimpses of reality... (there were some, like the stolen bike scene, but I'd wished for more.)
Good points first. This is "Wallander", but less Kurt than his daughter Linda (like the book, as far as Wikipedia tells - I only read Firewall). Conflict of generations is a natural consequence, and the father/child relation is reflected at least twice (the baby by artificial insemination, which later redoes Moses, and the unborn child in Anna, who again misses her long-lost father). Then we have the Christian fundamentalist sect, which uses terror (starting with setting swans afire) against what they consider sin: abortion, artificial insemination, gay marriage. A link to Jonestown is repeated multiple times, but wasn't so plausible to me.
And that leads us to more implausibilities. Coincidence just happens too often. Linda returns to Ystad, can't stay with her estranged pa, so moves in with Anna and meets the fatherless baby at a spoiled beach picknick. And gets to meet every point in this almost geometrical construction.
It somehow serves the story-line, but is it plausible to snipe-shoot the driver of a cruising van loaded with explosives? (The van stops nicely, ready for later timed explosion in open field.) I give this 7/10, partly because of nice Swedish details, and memorable scenes like the hanging in the church or the gay wedding, but at the end I'm not convinced - too much geometry, too little glimpses of reality... (there were some, like the stolen bike scene, but I'd wished for more.)