Cyrus Ponders The Futility of it All Along With Kenneth Branagh's "Wallander"

The Swedish have their own master detective, their Sherlock Holmes or Hercules Poirot. He’s rather depressed right now though and perhaps a bit drunk so he’s not available for interviews. The character is named Kurt Wallander and he comes from a series of novels and story collections by Swedish crime author Henning Mankell. A major hit in Europe, the 12 book series (so far) has been made into 22 films, and thirteen more are currently commissioned and in production. It also spawned recently a BBC adaptation of three of the novels starring Kenneth Branagh in the lead, in English for the first time. Thank FSM, it’s that miniseries that I’ve been called to review. I don’t think I’m up for sitting through 22 films of emo-detective considering the pointlessness of existence while solving crimes. I want to live.

Wallander is the dictionary definition of a sad-sack. He mopes around the station and the bleak Swedish countryside until someone murders someone else and he can find a way to both deal with the crime AND see it as a metaphor for something horrible at the same time. He is highly respected by his fellow officers, which seems mysterious as he looks like he’s a overcoat choice away from being a homeless person and drinks and eats like a guy who just found out he’s got a week to live. So, basically a lot like me except without the happy-go-lucky part. When it is crime-time though, he swings into action and…mopes around even more.

Wallander also deals with family issues. Each of the three mini-movies in this BBC collection details a little more as to why Kurt thinks his life sucks. I’ll give a spoiler here: it’s mainly because it really does. His wife left him, his daughter, while constantly hanging around telling him to cheer up, still clearly takes his wife’s side, and his father (played by a wildly scraggy looking David Warner) is losing his mind. If it’s not finding out some depressing secret about one of his co-workers (who he can’t bring himself to quite call ‘friends’) it’s some more ingratitude from the family. No wonder this guy breaks down so often.

Your picture right now is probably one of bleak hopelessness and overly-meditative characters but that’s not completely fair to the show. Sure, that's the setting and theme, but there's something else going on here that makes it all jell together. While Wallander has complete volumes of personal issues, and certainly would be tedious to deal with in real life, the clever mysteries the show sets up distract both him and the audience in the best possible way, offsetting his personal life and outlook in a delicate balancing act that is extremely appealing. It's fun watching Branagh knock it out of the park (which he tends to do no matter what he’s in) as he lets himself become absorbed in the only thing he knows, the only thing that takes him away from all the rest of the crap…mysterious dead people.

Episode one is called “Sidetracked” where a serial killer is preying on old rich white men and collecting their scalps. How this all ties into a young woman who sets herself on fire is a typical set-up for a Wallander mystery. Episode two is “Firewall”, where a death with no apparent cause of a man found in front of an ATM and two young teenage killers end up being connected to something frighteningly huge. Episode three is “One Step Behind” where a group of young folks are found shot dead and shortly afterward, so is a fellow cop. The investigation leads to bizarre ties between the two crimes and some revelations that everyone would have just as rather not have known. This all makes you wonder if Wallander does this constantly. I mean, sure, we see the times the two disparate events really do tie together but what about all the times that the dead farmer found annihilated by his thresher has absolutely nothing to do with the girl at the coffee shop giving him a non-fat latte instead of the mocha cappuccino he ordered? What about him screeching his insistence that his broken laptop surely has something to do with the woman found sawed in half backstage at the magic shop? Can you imagine living with this guy? Do they make a medicine for OCD, Depression and Aspergers?

I’m exaggerating for effect, but make no mistake, this series isn’t for everyone. There’s something almost too European about the tone of it all to appeal to most American audiences. Usually we like to see our heroes shoot more and hand-wring a bit less. That being said, by the time I got to Wallander’s third adventure, I was hooked both into the stories and into his depressing life. There’s something fascinating about a true existentialist intellectual and honestly, who is more likely to feel this way about things than a police detective? Even though the crimes he investigates are the only things that likely keep him from killing himself, it’s these acts of violence and their normality in his world that cause him to be who he is in the first place. He’s a good man surrounded by people who have given up on feeling anything, blunted by the harshness of their bloody climate. That uncomfortable empathy makes him a much more interesting fellow than he seems from an outside point of view. It takes an actor as accomplished as Branagh to pull it off.

Despite my criticisms, they seem kind of shallow when caught up in this intelligent take on the procedural cop show. I may not be the biggest classic mystery fan or even much of a buff for existentialist cinema, but “Wallander” put me into a trance where I watched all three episodes straight through. There’s a pleasant sort of hypnotism act that takes place, a relaxed state of contemplation and intellectual stimulation which more or less worked on me. While "Wallander" isn't topping my list of must-watch shows, for those who dig the mystery format, I'd have to strongly recommend giving this one a look.

Click Here to Watch Wallander: Sidetracked / Firewall / One Step Behind