Showing @ Filmhouse, Edinburgh until Thu 23 May

Tobias Lindholm / Denmark / 2012 / 99 min

After the successes of Borgen and The Hunt, writer Tobias Linholm directs his latest script. The cook for an ocean tanker, Mikkel Hartmann (Pilou Asbæk) is looking forward to returning to his family, however before he’s able to disembark, Somali pirates embark the ship and the crew are taken hostage. CEO of the company that owns the boat, Peter Ludvigsen (Søren Malling) enters into negotiations with the buccaneers to establish a price his board will stump-up for the men’s return.

Lindholm’s vivid depiction of the crew’s rapid dishevelment into squalor (filthy, sweat-soaked vests) creates a visual affront to the senses. This directly contrasts with the crisp, sterile world of Ludvigsen delivered fresh shirts by his doting wife – the stark difference emphasising the unpleasantness of the ship. Although a feeble phone line loosely connects the two worlds, the film contains many failed connections. The detainees are physically disconnected by their isolation at sea and the language barrier but also literally through Ludvigsen’s hanging-up the phone in his naïve attempts to control negotiations. As Ludvigsen and the pirate’s repeatedly deceive each other, the sailors are left in the dark as to what is really happening, the unknowing causing more fear and stress than any weapon. With horrible realism, Lindholm parallels the unnerving state of capture with the financially motivated process of release.

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