DVD Review: ‘Deliver Us From Evil’ Offers Danish Take on ‘Straw Dogs’

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CHICAGO – Ole Bornedal’s “Deliver Us From Evil” is a superb B-movie that occasionally threatens to become something more substantial. It has the misfortune of being saddled with one of the most overused titles of recent years, though I am certain no one will be confusing it with Amy Berg’s brutal yet vital 2006 documentary on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Bornedal’s film is brutally dark yet also darkly humorous.

From the very first fade-in to the last droll frame, the picture is awash in the desaturated colors and harshly lensed grime that are commonplace in Danish cinema, which seems to perpetually exist beneath a dark cloud. An oddly inviting narrator sets up the action in deceptively peaceful western Jutland, while hinting at its more malicious undertones. There’s a memorable early moment when devoted mother Pernille (Lene Nystrøm) attempts to teach her children that there are no evil people, only sad ones in need of love. Her kids respond with the argument that Osama Bin Laden is loved and certainly doesn’t appear to be sad.

DVD Rating: 3.5/5.0

Pernille is soon revealed to be the wife of Johannes (Lasse Rimmer), the film’s straight-arrow protagonist. His brother, Lars (Jens Andersen) is a life-long screw-up with a violent temper to match his intense self-loathing. When he accidentally strikes a body in the middle of the road with his car, the luckless coward fears that he’s killed the wife of his formidable boss, Ingvar (Mogens Pedersen). Instead of own up to the tragic accident, Lars utilizes the town’s xenophobia to his advantage by passing the blame onto a gentle Bosnian man, Alain (Bojan Novajec). Yet the audience is informed early on that Ingvar’s genial wife suffered from an enlarged heart, thus implying that her death may have been from natural causes. She also proves to have been the only good influence in Ingvar’s life, preventing him from quenching his homicidal thirst for blood. With her gone, all bets are off, as a disgruntled mob forms in support of Ingvar’s quest for vengeance. He’s a cardboard villain, and the film’s climax borrows generously from “Straw Dogs,” as the domesticated Johannes resorts to animalistic methods in order to protect the presumably innocent Alain. Regardless of the familiar ground it treads, “Evil” still manages to pack a solid punch, primarily because of the hypnotic rhythm Bornedal brings to certain sequences, allowing the absence of sound or the subtle pull-in of a camera to signal encroaching dread.

Deliver Us From Evil was released on DVD on June 28, 2011.
Photo credit: Entertainment One

There’s one brilliant scene here that seems to belong in a film more daring and less derivative than this one. It centers on Andersen, whose strong and complex performance can’t quite stop the audience from hating his character’s guts long after the final credits roll. But he is easily the most magnetic and unpredictable life form in the picture. He enters the action like a force of nature, savagely beating a man out of slumber before attempting to feign tenderness with his unfaithful girlfriend. Though he exuberantly announces their engagement in public, it’s naggingly obvious that the true object of his desire is Pernille. He makes a pathetic move on her during a dance, but his botched seduction is interrupted by the suspicious eyes of his newly branded fiancée. In an extraordinary extended take, Lars experiences a staggering mixture of conflicting emotions. He isn’t sure whether to embrace or deflect the woman’s advances, resulting in a sequence of unbearable (and yet wholly captivating) agony. The scene is a real tour-de-force of acting, direction, camerawork and choreography. Too bad the last act is on autopilot.
 

Lasse Rimmer and Lene Nystrøm star in Ole Bornedal’s Deliver Us From Evil. Photo credit: Entertainment One

“Deliver Us From Evil” is presented in its 2.35:1 aspect ratio, and includes a decent amount of extras, though first-time viewers are advised to avoid the theatrical trailer, which practically gives away every last twist and turn. Preceding the film are trailers for other Danish releases, including Bornedal’s acclaimed 2007 crime drama, “Just Another Love Story.” Three mini-featurettes compile outtakes from interviews recorded for the more substantial 26-minute documentary also included on the disc. Much of the footage is molded to profile the two brother characters and the women in their lives. Bornedal briefly mentions that Andersen is best known for playing “Polle from Snave,” a comical character popularized in commercials that was eventually given a 2002 star vehicle. The director goes on to say that Andersen may be one of the best actors he’s worked with, indicating that the two men may hopefully collaborate on an even more rewarding feature in the not-too-distant future.

As for the documentary, it benefits considerably from Bornedal’s willingness to discuss his motivations behind various scenes in candid detail. The plot’s setting was directly inspired by the filmmaker’s own upbringing in provincial Jutland, and the rawness of its uneducated inhabitants. The scene where Johannes tells off the rowdy mob by branding them as losers (“F—k you and your welfare benefits!”) allowed Bornedal to vent about Denmark’s socially democratic culture that requires everyone to “understand all these brutal working class idiots.” As for the sequences of climactic bloodshed, Bornedal had intended to avoid aesthetic violence, while opting to stage familiar scenarios in a way that avoided the standard clichés. Since the burdens of an unstable economy cause most Danish films to be shot in and around Copenhagen, the crew attempted to find untrodden locations along Denmark’s isolated countrysides. Though the film does not reflect well on the culture it depicts, Bornedal’s pointed criticisms extend beyond his national boundaries. When Ingvar answers Lars’s protest (“There are rules!”) with the sneer, “Not for terrorists,” the director notes that it’s meant to be “a George Bush/Dick Cheney line.”

By MATT FAGERHOLM Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com matt@hollywoodchicago.com