Forbrydelsen - *Spoiler Alert*

So last week I watched the final episode of The Killing (or Forbrydelsen in Danish) on BBC4. My Danish post-doc supervisor told me about it and so I gave it a try - mainly because I wanted to hear what spoken Danish sounded like - and I ended up well and truly hooked.

I can't recommend this series highly enough. The atmosphere generated in each episode is amazing and, maybe it's the language barrier, but the mystery surrounding the inner thoughts of main character Sarah Lund, played by Sofie Gråbøl, got me as obsessive about the programme as Lund is about the murder case of Nanna Birk Larsen.

Generally speaking, the series begins with the body of a girl being found inside a car in a canal. Lund, who was supposed to be moving to Sweden, gets wrapped up in the case to her replacement Jan Meyer's dismay. A series of constantly unravelling clues lead the detectives to investigate many possible culprits. More often than not they get it wrong which, in my mind, made it seem more like a real investigation and kept me interested throughout.

The interactions between Lund and Meyer grow throughout the 20 days of the case. Most of the time Meyer encourages Lund leave for her new job in Sweden but eventually they are almost, almost, working as a team and Meyer starts to trust Lund's incredible instincts.

Alongside this Lund and Meyer thread there is an intertwining politics-related plot which follow Troels Hartmann as he runs for election as mayor of Copenhagen. He and his team are under public scrutiny throughout the series and as a viewer I became in turns angry, empathetic, frustrated and moved by the reaction of Hartmann and his team to the events in the murder case.

The main thing I enjoyed (but not in a sadistic way) about the series was watching Lund's personal life degenerate whilst she came closer and closer to solving the crime. At first she is in denial about how single-minded and obsessive she is about the case but eventually she ends up taking incredible risks and losing everything she has to the investigation.

I loved the techniques the writers used to reflect the feelings of the characters in their surroundings and the most moving scenes tended to have minimal dialogue; which I really appreciated being a subtitle reader. I properly appreciated the subtlety of this when a couple of weeks ago I caught one episode of the American version on Channel 4 mid-way through the series. I was taken-aback by complete difference in take on the story, characters and atmosphere. From what I saw the American version loses all the mystery surrounding the character of Lund and seemed to turn her into a bit of a sap. Personally I feel there was too much emphasis on dialogue and making things a bit obvious in case you hadn't grasped the point.On the other hand the Danish version seemed to excel by using actor's expressions, music and scene-setting. After all one draw towards watching a crime drama is trying to work things out for yourself and trying to guess whodunnit and feeling smug if you got it right. I did get it right. I do feel smug.

And so, I could write much more but I will now end my essay on The Killing. Hopefully I haven't spoiled it for you if you want to watch it - after all I barely mentioned the crime itself - and I will leave you with an item I desperately want from the show: The Sarah Lund Sweater. It's a beauty!