Headhunters, good example of the tricks of the nordic police story with theft, persecution and nihilistic sarcasm.
Police story told from the point of view of offenders begins as a sort of variant of The case of Thomas Crown that by the relationship between marriage protagonist reminded me The Getaway, of Sam Peckimpah. But not misleading. It reminds me of the formula of both as a very distant echo, because Headhunters quickly developed a style that places it in the area of the Nordic police story, with the coldness and that hardness, this lack of empathy which is attached to the main characters, especially in times of violence. The other remarkable feature in the movie I would not dare to qualify it as realism, but as a kind of everyday life in some moments of action and violence. I refer for example to the triple resolution of the character of Ove, the companion of theft of the protagonist, a plot very well exploited, allowing the story to escape a topical time. If to this we add a look sarcastic it castrates emotions to replace them by the way hedonistic tap and exhibitionist of the main characters and provides a humorous air to the story from the start, we have almost complete the puzzle of this interesting and entertaining tale of crime that are cites several notable moments of intrigue and persecution with a scene -the truck-, which deserves to be counted among the most disturbing moments of suspense that we see in movies of this long and warm summer.
Perhaps what I least fits into the film adaptation is that use somewhat topical the issue of maternity as a conflict in the couple, the explanation of why is organized all the mess and this somewhat well-off outcome, domesticated somehow happy, although to be honest given the nihilistic coldness that exhibit the characters throughout the story is difficult to believe they will experience happiness at some point. In any case I would like to clarify that icy air exhibit the characters – except Ove that seems to be the only one that really knows how to take advantage of life in this landscape of nordic figures-, does not operate against the interests of the fable that tells us. Perhaps even to the contrary. This same story, told with the usual tone more empathetic characters, starring beings less cold and distant, less Ikea and more of the Anglo-Saxon style, is very likely that us it would have been more topical and predictable. In this way we always have that doubt and the mystery of the frigidity of the characters that seems to give more authority to the intrigue, but at this point we already know that it is simply a pose of a superficial nature and should not be fooled by it. Nihilistic boast of the creatures that inhabit this story and among other things seem totally unrelated to concepts such as liability or guilt, which reminded me quite American Psycho, especially in fragments developed in the business environment, as I say: pure pose. It usually happens with nihilism. It is a posing for the photo. It is not true. And truth is, precisely what is missing to this plot, by very raw as its scenes of action or violence. It is simply a choice of its director who, with great consistency, is represented in the final resolution of the duel between protagonist and antagonist, an installation covered by the display of monitoring that gives us a clue about one of the possible themes of the story behind: the game of appearances, this dilemma that appear to be subject many urbanites today quite lost among how see themselves really, think that they see them each other, and how they would like to them to see each other. In short the subject of the letter «r», as says the protagonist: reputation, case that opens and closes the story. A theme, the reputation, which is also capital to explain why a time to this part, the detective novels from the Nordic countries are fashionable wielding essentially the empowerment of the more morbid elements in its exploitation of the most classic formulas of the tale of intrigue.
Miguel Juan Payán
