Cold Case Hammarskjöld, 2019.
Directed by Mads Brügger.
Starring Mads Brügger and Göran Björkdahl.
SYNOPSIS:
Danish director Mads Brügger and Swedish private investigator Göran Björkdahl are trying to solve the mysterious death of Dag Hammarskjöld. As their investigation closes in, they discover a crime far worse than killing the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Documentary filmmakers en masse have increasingly toyed with the documentary form in recent years, whether self-reflexively riffing on the feat of doc-making itself, self-consciously blurring the line between fact and fiction, or hinging on a narrative twisty enough to shame a John le Carré novel.
Mads Brügger’s new doc Cold Case Hammarskjöld attempts all three in varying degrees, then, as it examines the shady circumstances behind the death of UN General Secretary Dag Hammarskjöld, whose plane crashed in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) in 1961.
Brügger teams up with Göran Björkdahl, a Swedish aid worker, to try and get to the bottom of Hammarskjöld’s fate, interviewing the surprisingly abundant number of people willing to discuss their link to that fateful night, as it becomes increasingly likely that Hammarskjöld’s plane was intentionally downed.
But at this point we’re only talking about the movie’s first act, because Brügger’s doc becomes something much more than a mere murder-mystery. With more fascinatingly macabre turns than a slickly-crafted multiplex thriller, examining Hammarskjöld’s death is simply the primer for uncovering a country-spanning political conspiracy which, if true, is utterly horrifying. The ensuing slew of convincing revelations prove staggering enough that even Brügger himself confesses mid-film to have lost interest in the instigating maybe-murder case.
Another “trope” of recent documentary filmmaking is the tendency for directors to directly involve themselves, even becoming “characters” in their own work. While recent films such as Yance Ford’s Strong Island have done this to intensely stirring effect, Brügger’s approach is decidedly more playful, and also far more likely to divide. In one of the film’s opening scenes, our director is heard discussing the title of his film, and he peppers the doc with sequences of himself attempting to organise the story alongside a secretary who may or may not be an actor.
This approach won’t vibe with some at all, and understandably so; it does invite a whiff of self-interest beyond the morbid curiosity for the story, and feels like padding in a film that runs over two hours in length.
Despite Brügger’s clear desire not to serve up another staid true crime doc, the format is generally quite procedural, throwing up chapter inter-titles which over-explain what we’re about to see, which in conjunction with a fairly stodgy talking heads presentation and infrequent voiceover narration, doesn’t make for the most visually riveting viewing. Some brief animated cutaways do break up the visual monotony somewhat, though.
But thankfully, the film is mostly interesting enough on its own merits, and the amount of co-operation Brügger achieves almost 60 years after-the-fact is undeniably impressive. While it won’t surprise anyone to learn that the film ends on an elliptical note, the sheer depth of Brügger’s coverage across unrelated subjects makes a compelling – if certainly not cast-iron – case for his central argument.
Though fundamentally unbalanced and a little too navel-gazing at times, Cold Case Hammarskjöld presents a chillingly plausible slice of possibly-true crime speculation.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more film rambling.
