Cioran

Tobias Lindholm seems to specialize on realistic, grim and bleak stories which he executes with grace and elegance on par with bygone masters. A Hijacking - Kapringen is Lindholm's second feature film, his first R is a tale of even bleaker conditions and circumstances than this realistic and powerful story of a ransom drama. Piracy and hostage taking for ransom is an ancient business model in Mediterranean. North African coast had plenty of Europeans waiting for release in exchange of escudos. Some stayed there and married, some converted to Islam, but some were lucky enough to return home. The famed Spanish writer of Don Quijote Miguel de Cervantes was perhaps the most famous case, and his writing was strongly inspired by his fate at the hands of his Moorish captors in Algeria.

Pilou Asbaek stars again in the main role like in Lindholm's previous film R as a ship's chef Mikkel and the representative of the crew used by the negotiator Omar to initiate contact with the owners of the cargo ship. Thus starts the nerve-wrecking chess between the negotiator and Orion Subway's CEO Peter (Sören Malling). Impulsive, moody, illiterate teen pirates make the life of the crew a hellish experience. Men are humiliated whenever hostage takers feel in the mood and constant threat of violence and sense of helplessness is strongly traumatizing. The crew and most hijackers, with the exception of negotiator, have no common language but signs and hands, and one side also communicates with guns...The CEO Peter is a cool and experienced businessman and negotiator and does not panic easily. The negotiator for the pirates needs Mikkel to express genuine desperation and misery which he does easily under threats of violence. Peter knows that the crew is a valuable merchandise but negotiations prolong for months.

Lindholm is a skilled and classy writer and director. R and Hijacking are both compelling films with strong characters, and Submarino which he wrote but was directed by Thomas Vinterberg (most known for his dogma masterpiece Festen) is perhaps even finer work. In Submarino 2 brothers from a troubled family battle with substance abuse and harsh conditions. Lindholm seems to work with his team of actors and Asbaek and Peter Möller are used in many of their projects.

Piracy in Somalia has turned into a business that plagues its neighboring countries severely. 4-5 attacks occur daily, and NATO battleship from Netherlands patrols the coastline protecting some cargo ships. Somalia is in complete mess lasting for 2 decades, jihadist al-Shabaab controlled Mogadishu until quite recently. UNISOM which consists of soldiers from Uganda and Burundi wage a desperate war that seems to last for years. Al-Shabaab and reigning political and military chaos maintains piracy business, Kenian coastline and Seychelles' economy suffer greatly from gangs of pirates. Seychelles islands and Somaliland in North Somalia at the Red Sea with its status of autonomy give piracy convictions of 6-10 years, which in a totally devastated country is no big deterrent. Hundreds of hostages at present wait for ransoms to be paid on the coast of Somalia. Essentially the film's narrative tension is sustained by fine nuances of depiction of inequality where Peter can choose and decide a lot, but nearly all the rest very little...

This is the first feature film by a bit over 30 years old Serbian writer and director Ivan Ikic. A tale of growth, alienation and a search for identity of a teenager without proper role models to guide him in his endeavors. The film was advertised as a story of football hooliganism, but it is only a theme of context for youth estrangement in a modern Eastern-European society in a smaller town.

Luka and his family are refugees from Kosovo, his father is missing, mother is depressed, angry and desperately unemployed in new conditions. Luka is being harassed by social workers and parole officers. The loss of a home, and father of the family overshadows Luka's rootlessness and senseless meanderings. Zeljko Markovic is relatively credible as a moping, clueless kid.

The intensity and threat of violence of the first scene projects an ominous ambiance into the rest of the film. Luka and his best buddy Flash are buying a gun, and testing it, but Luka is broke. He hurls insults and threats at the seller. The macho atmosphere of the scene predicts blood and violent deaths, but instead the director just follows that with aimless wanderings and general pointlessness of the main characters. The guys are bored and looking for danger and at least the director manages to convey that. Far more relevant than family, school, work or any creed for the two guys and their pals is supporting the local team. It is the only thing both do with passion. The culture of masculinity and the need to improve your position in a social pecking order colors most communication. Luka is impulsive, angry and depressed enough to not care about his safety and challenge bigger roosters. Narrative tension is built upon the danger of social repercussions to his posturing.

The film barely touches on the theme of football hooliganism, and is somewhat more descriptive of fanatical support of a football team. My own initial interest was a depiction of Serbian hooliganism, but the film just mirrors the backgrounds and general teen alienation behind devoting yourself to your team to such a significant degree. Serbian hooligans are some of the most famous for nationalism and racism in the whole Europe, and the film certainly describes bleak economic situations and harsher living conditions than in most of EU side of Europe. The most hated opponents are since the wars and bombings of last decades Croatia, Albania and USA. Flags are being waved and nationalist undertones are visible, racist xenophobia is being hinted at in one scene. Racism is shown in its typical insults and "banana throwing" -level so common still in many European leagues.

On the whole the depiction of meaningless alienation and social misery is not even close in its desperate hopelessness and grim destinies quite common in for example Finnish urban portrayals like Vuosaari and Bad Country (Paha Maa) but lacks subtlety and sense of irony of the more masterful Danish portrayals of existential modern angst. Tobias Lindholm, Thomas Vinterberg and Nicholas Winding-Refn have so many more nuances in their tales of social alienation and underworld and desperate characters looking for self-respect, and mainly sense of humor and tiny bits of humane credibility.

This is avantgarde art-house violence at its best, it is based on manga which is obvious watching the few first minutes of this film. Another brilliant post-post-modern artwork from Takashi Miike. After seeing the film I was just totally speechless.