The Killing, also known as Forbrydelsen
(The Crime), is a three season long Danish Police Procedural
television mystery crime drama series produced by Sandra Foss and Piv Bernth.
It was created by Soren Sveistrup and was first broadcast on the Danish
television channel DR1 in January 2007. The US remake of this TV series was produced by AMC, an American cable network in 2011. The Killing has received
many awards as well as nominations which include a BAFTA Award and an
International Emmy.
The TV series
revolves around the life of Detective Inspector Sarah Lund (Sofie Grabol) and
her team set in the Copenhagen main police department. Each series follows a
different murder case one day at a time, as the one-hour episode covers the 24 hour-long
investigations.
Episode 1 from Series 1 tells the story of
detective Sarah Lund from the Copenhagen Police Department as she is looking
forward to the end of her last shift at work before she moves to Sweden with
her fiancé. Her plans have been interrupted with the news of the missing report
of the 19-year-old Nanna Birk Larsen. Sarah finds herself at the top of a high
profiled investigation as Nanna’s belongings are found in a field, with leads,
which reach as far as the offices of a mayoral election candidate. Nanna has
been found in the back of a car, which has been dumped in the lake, raped and
murdered. Each episode after the murder in the first has been a search for the
killer of the 19-year-old girl, suspect after suspect.
During the
episode, we see text with the title, date and time of the day they are showing.
The dark weather and the constant rain sets a mysterious tone to the episode
that the audience is watching. The locations we see are; an abandoned flat, a
graveyard, a court or debate room, police office and the school. As the
investigation continues, the elections at the school become a part of the on
going search for answers to do with Nanna. The soundtrack heard during the
investigation in the woods while Sarah is thinking, creates tension for the
audience.
The Killing contradicted the expectations of a crime
drama in a few ways. This crime drama has a slower pace to the crime dramas we
usually come across to. We also see flash backs and disruptions within the
drama, but the foreignness makes the drama more appealing to a different
audience. Throughout The Killing,
we see a Nordic Noir, which allows
exploring several story arcs such as; politicians, the case, suspects involved,
the relationship of the main detective and the investigation-taking place.
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