Christoffer Boe can cook up a solid yarn. His latest film, “Special Unit: The First Murder,” has the compulsive bite of a murder mystery that hooks you and never loses you, despite no really pioneering technique. This is a handsomely made film, riffing on twists and turns with a fair degree of competence. In 1927, the Danish police instituted a special unit for tackling arson cases which are apprehended to be linked to insurance companies’ manipulations.
Otto (Alex Høgh Andersen), his partner PR (Nicolaj Kopernikus), and a raring secretary Camilla (Mathilde Arcel) together seek to plough through a burnt house mystery. The puzzle branches out in scale and amplitude, several stakeholders coming forth to interrupt, complicate, and destabilise a line of enquiry. Andersen is a suave, endlessly charismatic lead.
He has such a rivetingly confident presence that the film benefits immensely from just his charm alone. He has a supple understanding of the camera. You follow his lead without the slightest trace of imposition. This is a hero who is attuned to his magnetic appeal and demonstrates a firm grip over the journey he undertakes.
A technically adept filmmaker, Boe knows how to introduce thrill and tension in scenes. There’s a dramatic thrust to narratives he oversees, matching them to a canny blend of escalating stakes and expanding scope. Characters harbour secrets that shock and startle. But the gluing of their motives into narrative momentum comes off as organic, not mindlessly taped on for sensationalism. DP Lasse Frank bathes the film in a stunning, slippery, diabolical glow. It makes every shadowy exchange vibrate with a latent moral denudation. There’s a subterranean threat lingering at the corners of the frames.
Boe is working with a period canvas, but doesn’t let that stifle his film under moth-eaten tropes and visual choices. There’s always a rich pulse of uncertainty coursing through templates, an otherwise well-worn tale of following a trail of clues. Surprises are reserved for later stretches, accruing a wrenching weight.
The twist isn’t designed so much to hurl you off the choice as to strike with a plaintive insistence. There’s a sad, weary resonance to the narrative buildup. As the tangled relationships reveal their intricacies, the pieces come together to harrowing, devastating effects. How far can love push itself to contain individual parameters?
At the heart of the procedural is a controlling relationship, waking up to which incurs way more casualties than desirable. There’s an unaccountability bristling through the steady blow of the case being consequently unravelled. We get a tour through the upper social echelons where plotting and backstabbing are no alien sight but highly everyday occurrences.
“Special Unit: The First Murder has an easy trot.” Its rhythms might be familiar but are striated with a complex, satisfying gamut. A lot hovers in the air, edged with the shape of danger to come. Would the cops be able to suss out the criminal before things hurtle too severely? Can they bring back a grip on the actual delineation of the crime at hand? Visually gleaming, the film glides along a dark web of avarice and deception, hidden secrets and lethal truths. There’s no labouring under arthouse pretensions but a neatly structured tale with a sting.
There are letters, misleading breadcrumbs that propel the plot. As trauma and resentments swoop on the mystery, Andersen brings richly alive the glimmers of Otto’s own repressed torment. His performance lends a subdued gravity to the plot, constantly reminding us of what’s buried. Arcel also gives tremendous support as her Camilla grows in assertion and demands more space and agency. The film is certainly not flinging too lofty an ambition. It circumscribes a narrative within clear limits, within which there’s veritable pleasure to be had as the pieces click in place. Boe takes his characters to a place of realisation that’s coloured by the world’s ruthless vicissitudes.
A mother turns out to micro-manage her son’s affairs to obsessive measures that can make anyone aghast. Yet, the delusion of the son’s faith persists, perhaps only to be broken when the cold facts are held up. How long can such an equation endure when built on gaslighting and a vitiated form of attachment? Abrasive questions toss and churn, asking for acknowledgement despite a veil of denial. The mystery darkens, hinting at twisted desires and warped lust.
Andersen reflects the knowledge of the corralling situation as it bears down heavily on Otto’s soul. Yet, the officer is keen on seeing the case till the very end. “Special Unit: The First Murder” engagingly struts forth while investigations unroll and the plot thickens. The needle of suspicion wanders till the guilty is flashed in a melancholic wash.
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