The Killing

Why is "The Killing", the Danish thriller on TV, better than any of our British TV products? It's a work that analyses in depth the murder itself and also the effect it has on a whole community - well, those in the community who are affected in various ways by the murder, from the girl's immediate family to a councillor who is trying to oust the mayor and take over the job himself. The police investigating the case also become humanely affected by the murder, especially the young woman detective (who wears cardigans that have, due to the series, soared in price) who becomes almost insanely obsessed with the case. Yet don't British TV crime plays do something of the same kind? "Waking the Dead" has investigations of murdered people whose cases are history. Each murder affects certain people within the community and outside it; the innvestigating team use pathology to find this and that out about the victim.... and so on. But there's something special about "The Killing". Its tone is not frivolous or superficial or slightly humorous (Poirot) but deadly serious. You feel, with British crime plays and series that the victim is there to make a good story; he or she is dead so now we'll concentrate on the whys, hows amd wherefores. The victiim is a sort of cypher on which the story hangs (if it does!). In British TV crime works, often, depth of character attempts use idiosyncrasies to make them interesting; there is little depth of character in fact. In "The Killing" the characters were portrayed with depth and understanding: you have the dead girl's immediate family suffering with an agony you could almost feel yourself; then as the investigation spread out to others - a teacher, a boy-friend, a councillor etc - and, not least, the investigating team and slowly the pressure grows on everyone concerned. There was nothing of the "let's make this as exciting as possible" but something of the long, serious , well written novel which delves deep into its characters as well as tell a good story. It was not of the English school well described by Orwell in his essay "Decline of the English Murder": respectable middle class chap who decides to bump off his wife (less disgracefull than leaving her for his secretary apparently - then!) and start out in life anew. It was, it seems, a characteristically Nordic murder mystery for, it seems, the Danish and Swedish writers of crime fiction have become far superior to our home-grown breed.