RATING
Director(s): Mads Brügger
Country: Denmark
Author: Brügger
Actor(s): Mads Brügger, Amira Smajic
Written by Tom Augustine.
The fascinating dichotomy at the heart of the world’s obsession with Scandinavian crime dramas (or Scandi-noir) is this: stories of pitch-black darkness arise out of countries that, at least in a Euro-centric perspective, are renowned for their peacefulness, democracy and incorruptibility. How peculiar that these intricate, bleak tales of murder, bloodletting and deception arise from spaces frequently pointed out as the end-game of Western democratic ideals, places that the likes of Bernie Sanders and other left-leaning politicians make examples of when decrying their own countries’ lack of healthcare, housing, safety nets and welfare systems for their most vulnerable. Of these, Denmark holds a particularly eye-catching position — it has been consistently ranked as the least corrupt nation on earth. It’s the kind of laurel that, were we in a film, would quickly reveal itself to be ironic, a gossamer-thin veil just begging to be pierced. Fittingly, then, comes The Black Swan, a work of fascinating complexity whose subjects are the slipperiest of characters all, engaged in circumstances so seemingly cinematic as to beg the question of whether we’re viewing reality at all. It’s part of a pattern for the series’ creator, Mads Brügger, the journalist and documentarian behind Cold Case Hammarskjöld, the very good 2019 documentary that speculates about what secrets died alongside UN diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld following a plane crash in the sixties in Zambia. Speculation is the name of the Brügger’s game there, presenting terrifying, all-too-plausible what-ifs about what Hammarskjöld was embroiled in, and how it may have impacted the world for decades to come.
At the centre of The Black Swan is an unknowable entity — Amira Smajic, a lawyer embroiled in an enormous swathe of corrupt practices across Denmark, from petty crime to money laundering for high profile gang-leaders and dirty politicians. Statuesque, glamourous and attractive, Smajic feels like she’s emerged from a Hollywood noir, a femme fatale of sorts. Smajic has earned the moniker ‘The Ice Queen’ for her purported lack of reaction when hearing about the crimes committed by some of her clientele — her wide, dark eyes are often completely unreadable, even when she’s in tears. She approaches Brügger at the beginning of the series, and the journalist quickly realises he’s uncovered a treasure trove of dirty little secrets, so capable is Smajic of attaining the confidences of her clients. From the outset, Smajic asserts her desire for reformation — she is full of guilt over her actions, and wants out. She and Brügger’s team concoct a plan — set up a myriad of hidden cameras on her person and in her office, collecting evidence against major players in a range of money laundering schemes, among other criminal activities. Over the course of four episodes, a host of supporting characters emerge, all of them almost cartoonishly stereotypical of the kind of crime story we have come to expect — a bougie upper class investment banker addicted to the life of luxury; a quietly sinister biker gang figurehead; a terrifyingly unpredictable gang member and sometimes assassin — all of them unwittingly indicting themselves over and over again inside Smajic’s office. At the same time, Brügger zeroes in on Smajic, slowly unpicking her past and delving into just what makes her tick. A Bosnian refugee who grew up in a concentration camp, we catch glimpses of the desperation that led to her association with criminality, and quickly understand how the lure of financial security has defined her life up to now. At one point, Brügger asks her what, as a child, she wanted to do when she grew up. ‘Make money’, she replies.
The cause of enormous controversy in its home country of Denmark, Cold Case Hammarskjöld director and journalist Mads Brügger investigates a money laundering lawyer seeking to reform herself by filming her encounters with the local criminal element using hidden cameras. Screening exclusively on Rialto Channel, the four-part docu-series is at once a chilling lifting of the veil on Denmark’s corruption issues, and a character study of an especially slippery subject.
And yet, can we really trust that Smajic is doing all this out of the goodness of her heart? Brügger certainly doesn’t seem to, holding his subject at arm’s length during extensive interviews. It becomes clear very quickly that Smajic is incredibly image-conscious, seemingly cognizant of the salaciousness of the life she leads and its profound marketability to a true-crime hungry audience. We are also shown, over and over again, her ability to utilise her talent as a liar to wriggle out of tight, intimidating situations — but where the lines of her performance end and the real Smajic emerges are never entirely clear. At times, Smajic seems to lean into the intrigue of her situation — she repeatedly discusses the possibility of being ‘liquidated’, if she’s discovered. An interaction with a local heavy named ‘Wassem’, who follows her into a taxi, seemingly leaves her deeply shaken. Later, we come to understand that she and Wassem know each other much more closely than we’ve been led to believe. If it is a power play, or a get-out-of-jail-free card, it’s a cunning one, as our sympathies are with her during the many chilling exchanges with her criminal counterparts, a dim awareness that we don’t have the full picture always buzzing away in the back of mind. Along the way, Brügger, ever the provocateur, invites his own sensationalism, through meticulous reconstructions and interviews shot inside highly dramatic confines that feel like we’re sitting inside a CIA situation room.
The series has already caused an enormous stir in Denmark and other Scandinavian countries, where the bombshells therein have tarnished the region’s squeaky-clean persona, leading to prosecutions, firings and investigations galore. Looking in from the outside, the series is most fascinating as a character study, the many ins-and-outs of the crimes committed exhaustively collected, and not always as compelling as the people committing them. This particularly comes to a head in a twisty-turny final episode, that subverts a lot of what we’ve seen in earlier episodes and offers new shades to Smajic. In her spartan office, there are no decorations save one — a print of a Frida Kahlo painting, The Two Fridas. It’s an exceptionally suggestive decoration, frequently in frame during Smajic’s many meetings. Interpretations of the work, which have ranged from exploring Kahlo’s feelings of cultural displacement to the split persona she felt she had in her relationship with her husband, take on new resonance here. In one half of the image, Kahlo wears European clothes, and her heart has been cut out. ‘That’s who I was’, Smajic claims, referring to her past criminal activity. Heartless, she suggests. Sometimes, though, the interpretations we have aren’t the ones others take away. In the context of The Black Swan, the painting serves as a reminder of something else — that both subjects in the painting are the same person. The same person, with two faces.
The Black Swan premieres on September 3 at 8:30 PM on Rialto Channel (Sky, Channel 39)
Catch up on Sky Go if you miss Episode One.