[This review originally ran as one of my regular columns at Showcase. Thanks to the powers that be there for permission to reprint here.]
It was supposed to be a return to a simpler life for Johannes and Pernille, a move away from the big city and back to the small town for the high powered lawyer and his young family. It should be perfect: A home to shape and rebuild with their own hands, lots of space for the kids, a slower pace of life. Perfect. But life doesn't always work out as we plan and things move into a dark and violent place in this harrowing thriller from Ole Bornedal - a director who must now surely be ranked among the very best Europe has to offer.
The one obvious flaw in Johannes' plan to return home comes in the form of Lars - his drunken, lascivious brother who makes eyes at Johannes' wife Pernille all the while smacking his own pregnant girlfriend around. And, yes, Lars is ultimately the cause of their downfall but it is not any of his more obvious flaws that does it. No, Johannes will have to go to hell and back because while he may be an upright and caring man his brother is, at heart, a coward.
The film opens with Lars, a long haul truck driver, on the road at the end of a lengthy run. He's tired. He's weary. He's more than a little bit drunk. And so he simply fails to notice the woman approaching on her motorcycle until it is far too late. It is only the sickening thump of the bike rolling under his wheels that tells Lars something has just gone horribly wrong. Does the fact that the dead woman is a respected church goer make it worse? Or that she is wife to Lars' boss? If he comes forward, if he is honest, Lars' life is effectively over and so he takes another path. He hides her. He pulls the bike off the road. And then, before anybody notices that she is missing, he puts together a quick frame job, pinning the death not on himself but on Alain - a shell-shocked Bosnian refugee who has taken refuge in their small community, a man employed to do odd jobs by Johannes as he slowly works on his home renovations.
And it turns out - sadly - that Lars knows his fellow townsfolk all too well. The community is tight and supportive but only for locals. Alain? He's another story. And with Lars' frame-up proving very effective the town quickly transforms into an angry mob, hungry for blood, a mob that finds Alain in the home of Johannes, who refuses to give him up ...
The shocking thing about Deliver Us From Evil is not how much hate is able to drive people to atrocity. Nor does the shock lie in the moments of graphic brutality captured on screen. No, we're used to violence. We're used to the idea that atrocities happen. We're used to savagery put on screen in the name of entertainment. No, what makes Deliver Us From Evil shocking is how real each and every one of these characters feel and - having come to know them - how every horrible event feels not only plausible but inevitable. The power of Bornedal's film is that we understand that in the right circumstances these exact events not only could happen but would right in our own towns, maybe right in our own homes.
Bornedal works here largely with theater actors, performers who clearly have a great deal of familiarity and trust with each other, and he pulls stunning performances out of each and every one of them. Jens Andersen and Pernille Valentinem, in particular, are sterling as Lars and his battered girlfriend Scarlett - Scarlett played basically as a continuous open wound - with both bringing life to enormously damaged characters. The cinematography straddles the line between style and authenticity beautifully, reinforcing and bolstering the actions and emotions of the film without ever overwhelming and Bornedal's handling of the rising cycle of hate and violence executed flawlessly. This is a film so well put together that you can dissect it endlessly once it's over but while you're in it you can do nothing but feel.
Now nine months into 2009, with hundreds of titles screened, I say quite confidently that this is the film of the year.