Swedish Crime's Wounded Hero (Wallander)

Member Name: Brambles1

Product:	Wallander
Date:	18/06/09 (14 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Breathes new life into a familiar genre

Disadvantages: Only 3 episodes so far

This beautifully filmed, sensitively acted BBC adaptation of the bestselling crime novels of Henning Mankell, breathes fresh, cool air into the familiar format of a world-weary cop in a violent, confusing world.

Kenneth Branagh is masterful as Kurt Wallander - a bewildered, defeated 40-something policeman in the Swedish town of Ystad who has seen his peaceful beautiful town slowly morphing into a dark place of terror and violence over the years, and whose own personal life has slowly unravelled while his attention was elsewhere.

Wallander has a distant and disappointing relationship with his elderly father (poignantly played by David Warner) who is slowly succumbing to old age and is furious about it, locking himself up in his art studio, painting the same landscape over and over again as his son tries in vain to get close to him. Wallander's daughter Linda also features prominently in the TV series, as she tries to mend the bridges with her estranged father, who seems to feel too guilty, wounded and conflicted to let her get too close.

The plotting is deft and the crimes often gruesome, but this series is mostly about the characters and their lives and surroundings. The real star of this TV adaptation is the Swedish landscape, beautifully shot with vivid golds, blues and greens shot through with the white Nordic daylight, contrasting with the gloomy shadows of the half-lit world of murder and murky deeds that Wallander is forced to investigate.

Summary: A beautifully shot and masterfully acted TV adaptation