For the trailer of The Guilty, please click here.
In the year 1974 Dark Star was released in the USA, a movie
about a man tasked with talking a computerized smart-bomb out of exploding,
which he has to do by teaching it Phenomenology (and you thought talking to
your mother was a drag). After Dark
Star, the bar is set really, really high for any movie about a phone call,
at least for the kind of audience who are familiar with the experiments in this
genre. This brings us to The Guilty,
a Danish film about a phone call. Or is
it? This question describes The
Guilty best, perhaps, and by the time you're done watching you'll have quite
a few sins to confess. In our view, The
Guilty is more or less a film about the short hand of the law. On the surface, and to make a long story
short, The Guilty is about a policeman named Asger, who has somehow
ended up as a call-agent on the emergency line.
Asger finds himself having to solve a case of kidnapping (and a case of
a kid who is napping, actually) over the phone when one Iben (Jessica Dinnage) calls
him from the back of her murderous husband’s van. The Iben’s shaky voice, seemingly made of
snot, tears, and very thick saliva, opens up Asger’s sympathetic appetite, and
as the whole world wants him to simply report the case and move on, he remains
intent on solving it himself. Asger is
played by Jakob Cedergren in what seems to be a typical typage casting process,
since he already has played a role in “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” a story
about the complexities of marriage, which is the one topic that tends to smack
Asger flat on his lawful face throughout the film
It is very tempting to go the classic route, here, as to state
whether or not the film delivers on its promises. This, however, is hindered by the sneaky
narrative that consistently tries not to promise anything. As such, we can only depend on the film’s
title, “The Guilty,” which turns out to be a very handy way for participating
in this game the narrative plays on its audience. While you’re unlikely to have your
expectations unveiled, fulfilled, or destroyed, you will definitely have fun
playing with the narrative and getting played by it inside your head. There are various reasons why the film does
this game so well (and it really does play like a narrative multi-choice video
game at times, almost like Pillars of Eternity for you video-game nerds out
there). The main culprit that dismantles
and plays with the audience’s expectations has to be the narrative design
itself, that is, how quick-paced and multi-threated it gets over time. The technique is very clever, and lighting is
used to drive it to a whole new level.
You will see red light reflecting on Asger’s angry face but only to see
him do something completely rational and, as you keep hearing Iben’s voice
without seeing her face, you will find Asger’s face coming in and out of the
dark in varying phases, and it all corresponds to shifts and escalations in the
story. The bottom line is, as far as
story is concerned, you’re really in for a treat, and you might very well not
bring your popcorn this time around.
Much like the aforementioned Dark Star, The Guilty
ends up taking a very existential dive, and there is absolutely nothing in the
film that is exclusive to Denmark. The
story can plausibly play out anywhere in the modern world, which ascends the
film to a more philosophical level. The
main idea that stuck with us, from the very beginning, is how Asger gets
practically ‘wired’ to the world around him.
His headphones are hard-wired instead of wireless, and he keeps having
to stare into blank spaces in order to focus on that exclusively vocal mode of
communication with the troubled citizens.
The way he stares into, say, a wall, while he meditates on the incoming
voice, pretty much makes for an obvious dissociation of sorts. This existential layer is at the center of
the film as we no longer know who exactly Asger is. The issue is further complicated when he has
to confront ‘due process’, a very major theme in the film, and it seems that
“due process” plays out like a catalogue that comes with a human-computer,
something that would make all call agents in the police department one and
same. It almost feels like Asger is an
existential rebel against the newly computerized world, a digitized rebel.
When it comes to screenplay, The Guilty is pretty much mirror
neurons: the movie. The technique of
focusing an actor’s facial reaction to something in order to inspire the
audience to have that same reaction (which is the aforementioned “mirror-neurons”
technique) is employed in a very balanced way in the film. However, this is a clear point of
paradox. Asger is human, and he cannot
exactly have an expressionless face, since we’re bound to claim that he would
look stunned were he to have a neutral expression. What remains for the director to use is a
very interesting, and indeed a very witty technique of cinematography: he is
willing to light the same facial expression in different ways based on the
narrative undertones of the occasion. This
clearly sets a great example of innovation, as it seems to be employed in a
very conscious and strategic manner. The
technique is likely born out of necessity as the film takes place exclusively
in Asger’s two cubicles. The screenplay
unfolds in phases and employs a few nifty tricks here and there, too, such as Asger
changing his brightly-lit room to a very dark room when he gets really hooked
on Iben’s case.
When it comes to acting, Jakob Cedergren’s performance of Asger
comes with a very great challenge. He is
more or less the only actor, and almost the entirety of the footage is focused
on him. His ability to express various
forms of the same human emotion is simply stunning. He can sit while worried, or relieved, or
impatient, or angry, and his posture keeps shifting in a way that is akin to a character
form a masters’ painting. It is safe to
say that, in The Guilty, Cedergren had to think hard on the movement of
his eyes or the maneuvering of his jaw.
In other words, acting, here, takes a very expressive turn towards the
movement of each singe organ. Not only is
Cedergren’s character dominating of the screen through the whole film, but he
is also visible only in part. The movement of an arm is now a big part of his
performance, and it takes a very subtle level of coordination when compared to,
say, tom Cruise running at full speed in the Mission Impossible
movies. The skills required on Cedergren’s
end are indeed of the theatrical kind, which makes The Guilty pretty difficult
to describe in mundane terms. It seems
that the more we delved into the film the more unique it got, and Cedergren’s performance
is indeed a big part of this. Jessica
Dinnage’s performance of Iben is also worth noting. Her distress is every bit as contagious as
Asger’s raging demand for justice, and her ability to fake crying is
dangerously convincing.
The effect of dramatization in the pacing follows an overly
simplistic pattern. For starters, and
considering its runtime of 85 minutes, The Guilty appears like a film
playing it safe. Evidently, the content
is very condensed, which makes it a bit tricky to oust one single scene as our favorite. The dramatic effect in the film flows in
repetitive spikes, which are represented by Asger receiving phone calls, rather
than being built in a painfully progressive way. The problem, however, is that the pattern
becomes very easy to predict: Asger receives a call, he reacts, then
overreacts, then gets a few ideas, rinse and repeat. This emotional roller-coaster of his is
undermined by how pristine he always looks.
The depression may show in facial expressions, but it doesn’t show in
make-up: through weariness or sweat. This
is a small mistake, still, and it does not necessarily affect the overall
experience. As far as dramatization is
concerned, the film plays it all very well.
The whole film plays like a very long scene taken from multiple angles,
especially when considering that it occurs entirely in two rooms.
All in all, The Guilty earns itself a solid 5 out of 5
stars. It is simply a big mind game
sugar-coated in sheer cinematic excellence, and dipped in rich narrative sauce. The Guilty, with its pacing and
reliance on the audience’s engagement, delivers on its technical premise very
well. After hearing Iben’s voice for so
long, not seeing her face will slowly begin to haunt you, and haunt you it
will.
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