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A Hijacking (2012)
Kapringen (original title)
Director:
Cast:
Summary:
The crew of a Danish cargo ship is hijacked by Somali pirates who proceed to engage in escalating negotiations with authorities in Copenhagen.
Review & Reflection:
Tobias Lindholm’s was shot on a genuine cargo ship had was hijacked off Somalia to establish a realistic environment for the narrative. The opening of the plays to this realistic environment as it provides a framing for Hartmann against an open sea while he is on the phone to his family. This opening shot seeks to introduce Hartmann as our main protagonist but also establish the juxtaposition of his life and his life as a dedicated family man.
The film shows the effects of piracy from the point of view of the shipping company and these opening shots help establish and frame the narrative in a way that put the neither the pirates nor the captures in their spatial field, instead framing them as displaced. THis reinforces the power that the office in Denmark will have over their fate in the scenes to come.
The reality is a central point to the film in its cinematography and editing, the camera follows the characters in the office, and onboard the ship is an often disjointed and shaky way – implying that we are part of the action. The hijacking is never, shown on screen it is revealed via a phone call back to the main office protagonist Peter Ludvigsen. Chaos is shown on the ship with the rapid cuts in close-up n Harmann and the Somali’s and a medium close-up on of the captain being inexplicably being ushered away. The abrupt cut to silence in the phone call drives home the sense of remoteness of the office in Denmark from their captive crew.
When filming the negotiation scenes, the cast was kept on set awaiting the phone call for often hours on end and the actor playing the Somali negotiator was on a teleconference from Kenya. The surprise as the calls abruptly end are therefore genuine reaction from the players. However, on top of that the how the Danish company has no real urgency initial to bring a swift conclusion to the hijacking help to reinforce the director’s point of view that money is worth more than human life.
This point of the value of life is also is shown in the contrasting of the rusty dimly lit ship and the bright, clean offices, It casts “the office” in control of the situation reinforcing how they are prioritising saving money over the suffering for their employees.
Although the film is shown from the point of view of large firms, it does not show it in a good light, nor doesn’t offer empathy towards the Somali – it clearly illustrates to the viewer how money is prioritised over life and as the viewers to reflect upon that.