The Hunters

Erik left Norrbotten years ago and became a policeman in Stockholm. When his father dies he goes back; he takes a post at the local station and his brother Leif lives there. Poaching is widespread in the region. Reindeer are shot, the meat is sold and nobody complains. Erik opens the file. His colleagues at the station are unwilling; they know who the hunters are and some of them are related. As he goes on Erik sees that his brother is in it too. Then a witness dies. Kjell Sundvall directs. Rolf Lassgård plays Erik and Lennart Jähkel plays Leif. It is a Swedish production. The film took one of the highest box office results of its time in Sweden and was counted a turning point in the domestic cinema. A sequel was made years later. The matter it treats is the closed community; everyone in the town knows everyone and the law is something that comes from outside. The northern landscape and the winter work inside the narrative; the place is built as a threat. The narrative puts the relation between the brothers at its centre and ties the crime strand to it. The violence comes suddenly and unprepared; the narrative does not build it as a genre scene. Its limit is structure; the last section moves toward a genre shape and the tension is tied to it. Who it is for: viewers who like Scandinavian crime films and provincial thrillers. Who it is not for: the violence is explicit, some scenes hard, and the ending merciless.