Terribly Happy

Robert was a policeman in Copenhagen. Something happened and as punishment he is sent to a small town in Jutland. The town sits at the edge of a bog. The station is empty; the previous officer disappeared and nobody talks about it. Robert tries to apply the rules. The townspeople laugh. A woman comes and says her husband beats her. Robert warns the man. The town does not like it; things are settled differently here. Robert grows close to the woman. Then something happens one night and he has to use the town's method. Henrik Ruben Genz directs. Jakob Cedergren plays Robert; Lene Maria Christensen, Kim Bodnia and Lars Brygmann are in the cast. It is a Danish production. The source is Erling Jepsen's novel. The film was submitted as Denmark's entry for the Oscar and won awards at home. Its form is a western; the town, the outsider sheriff and the community with its own law are used deliberately. The matter it treats is a community protecting its own order; the bog here is both real and functional. The humour is dark; the scenes build tension and are funny at the same time. The narrative does not build Robert as innocent; what he did in Copenhagen opens at the end. The townspeople are not of one type and everyone carries the same secret. Its limit is tone; the narrative is cold, the characters distant, and the ending uncomfortable. Who it is for: viewers who like Scandinavian thrillers and black humour. Who it is not for: it is cold, bleak, and the ending bitter.