{"id":7775,"date":"2019-08-28T18:28:49","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T22:28:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=7775"},"modified":"2019-08-28T18:30:46","modified_gmt":"2019-08-28T22:30:46","slug":"review-cold-case-hammerskjold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=7775","title":{"rendered":"Review: COLD CASE HAMMERSKJ\u00d6LD"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Experimental investigative documentary becomes a filmmaker journey.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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When Danish filmmaker Mads Br\u00fcgger (see 2011\u2019s \u201cThe Ambassador\u201d) checks out a famous cold case with Swedish private investigator G\u00f6ran Bj\u00f6rkdahl, he naturally brings to the matter his acerbic wit and penchant for off-kilter tone. In assisting in the investigation into the 1961 mysterious death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammerskj\u00f6ld, Br\u00fcgger becomes obsessed. It\u2019s a tunnel vision that the two men share, possibly, to their detriment. And because so much of what they find only leads them down dark rabbit holes, their years long expedition proves more frustrating that revealing. It\u2019s frustrating for them, because the answers are ever-elusive, but for the viewer, it\u2019s fascinating and bloody good fun.

The story starts back in 1961, long before Br\u00fcgger was born. Dag Hammerkj\u00f6ld was serving as the UN Secretary General. His chief goal, according to this documentary, was to assist African nations. This caused Hammerkj\u00f6ld to run afoul of some dangerous people, and it may have also resulted in his assassination. Of course, the official story is that he died in a plane crash due to either a mechanical failure or pilot error. Br\u00fcgger and his partner in the investigation, Bj\u00f6rkdahl, think that there was a cover up, and they set out to prove it.

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Traveling investigators, filmmaker Br\u00fcgger and detective Bj\u00f6rkdahl.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What the two men discover may shine some light on a possible alternate theory about the cause of the plane crash, but finding answers really aren\u2019t important. The questions raised are the most intriguing thing. This leads them to Africa, and the revelation of a shadowy mercenary organization that had its fingers in some very dirty business.

Documentary filmmakers will be keenly interested in Br\u00fcgger\u2019s technique in which he inserts himself into the narrative. By peeling back the curtain on his process, we see his investigation and how he \u201cfinds\u201d his story. Starting out thinking he\u2019d focus on the mysterious death, possibly murder, of Hammerskj\u00f6ld, Br\u00fcgger is disappointed to learn that he\u2019s not going to find anything more than a conspiracy theory with little hard evidence. However, his efforts are not all for nothing, and as he and Bj\u00f6rkdahl dig, sometimes literally, they discover a possibly wider and more disturbing past in Africa.

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Br\u00fcgger’s sense of humor permeates the film even during dark moments.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Along the way, Br\u00fcgger never loses his dry sense of humor, and anyone who saw his last film, \u201cThe Saint Bernard Syndicate,\u201d will pick up on some of his go-to notes. It\u2019s hard to separate Br\u00fcgger the serious documentarian from Br\u00fcgger the comedian. While it\u2019s possible that he can be both simultaneously, the quirky manner in which this documentary is constructed (using animation and theatrical elements) might frustrate some viewers.

For example, while investigating one scary organization, Br\u00fcgger dresses as its frightening leader and even stays in the same African hotel that the feared man was alleged to have occupied. Br\u00fcgger employs the services of not one, but two local secretaries to which he separately dictates the film\u2019s narration. The secretaries become characters in the film (a kind of Greek chorus) and often ask him questions about what they are typing (on an old typewriter). The small notes they type become title cards in the film, providing visual cues to push the story along, revealing the investigative process in action. It\u2019s tedious, but really clever.

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A retro typewriter is used to provide visual cues.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s this level of invention that I found infectious, Br\u00fcgger\u2019s experimentation is almost entirely successful. However, I believe it may take another go with another story before he\u2019s transcended the form. And that film may give viewers answers instead of just more questions.

It\u2019s important to point out that some viewers will question whether this is a documentary at all. My answer is that it is an essay not about a cold case, but about the two men following up on that case. To that extent, \u201cCold Case Hammerskj\u00f6ld\u201d is one of the oddest and most unique documentaries I\u2019ve seen this year.

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NOTE<\/strong>: The documentary form is being manipulated producing some very entertaining, if also, not entirely successful films. One example is Hulu\u2019s \u201cThe Amazing Johnathan Documentary.\u201d That messy experiment documents filmmaker Benjamin Berman\u2019s efforts to make a movie about the comic magician The Amazing Johnathan. It\u2019s a real train-wreck of a picture and, of course, that\u2019s the point.

When a documentary eats itself, as it did with that one, all the director can do is turn the camera inward. The trick is to have someone on the other side of the lens worth watching.<\/em>

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Filmmaker Mads Br\u00fcgger experiments with the documentary form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1720,1718,206,1719,1249],"class_list":["post-7775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-amazing-johnathan","tag-cold-case","tag-documentary","tag-hammerskjold","tag-mads-brugger","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7775"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7784,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7775\/revisions\/7784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}