When Darkness Falls

Posted by Guest Author (info@filmschoolrejects.com) on February 27, 2007

This article was written by guest author Luis dos Santos.

Swedish director Anders Nilsson (Den Tredje v¥gen, Livvakterna) has a vast career in action and thriller movies, with most of his films targeted to the international market. He has directed 5 features films and about 80 commercials and has a vast curriculum in screenplay, cinematography and editing. In his latest feature film When darkness falls (N¤r m¶rkret faller) he presents us a dark, disturbing thriller.

Leyla, Carina and Aram are the central characters of each of the three different stories which take place in Sweden at about the same time. Leyla (Oldoz Javidi) and the 19 year old Nina (Bahar Pars) are the adolescent daughters of a very conservative arabic family. Nina finds herself in trouble inside the family when suspicion arises that she has a boyfriend. After her relatives decide to take some extreme measures to prevent her from seeing any other boy again, Leyla decides to go as far as she can to restore her syster’s honour.

Aram (Reuben Sallmander) is the owner of a small restaurant which has been recently target of the interest of local criminals. When his bouncers refuse the entrance to three young ruffians, the criminals decide to take revenge and shoot some persons at the restaurant. Aram is the only one who can identify the perpretators.

The television journalist Carina (Lia Boysen) is married with the cinematographer H¥kan (Peter Engman), the couple’s life being impregnated of episodes of domestic violence. After Carina decides that she can no longer live in that situation, she reports H¥kan to the police and makes her case known to the public. When the media refuses to cover her story, she decides to quit journalism and runs for office in the European Parliament. Albeit her extremely low chances of being elected, where she intends to draw attention to the problem of violence against woman.

Helped by a dark soundtrack, the director manages to tell a consistent story by skillfully interweaving together the three plot lines of the movie. The fast pace of the movie constantly presents the audience with new developments which makes the long running time of the movie almost unnoticeable. The cutting points from one story into another were well chosen in order to leave the viewer in suspense, and accounts for an overall fluid viewing experience.

The director skillfully uses three brutal stories, which could easily be happen to anyone, as a strong social critic. The characters in each story live in an atmosphere of fear and injustice, where the outside world apparently seems unable to understand them or care for them. The violence is used as a means to develop the characters further and contrary to most thrillers, it’s not the main point of the movie. It helps to understand the characters’ lives and motivations for their actions, which is particularly evident in Nina’s story. This shifts the focus to the emotions of the characters, making the film heartbreaking at some points.

When darkness falls is ultimately a reflection about how far someone is willing to go to defend his honour. The film won the Amnesty International Film prize at the Berlinale 2007 film festival. The prize aims to draw the attention of audiences and representatives of the film industry to the theme of human rights.

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