Before the Frost (23 Sep. 2012)

An elderly woman is murdered in a wood by a man she saw setting fire to swans. He buries her corpse with a bible annotating the book of Revelations and from his finger-prints he is ... See full summary »

Director:

Charles Martin

Writers:

Peter Harness, Henning Mankell (novel)

Stars:

Paul Andrew Williams, Cecilia Hjalmarsson, Rebekah Staton

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
Paul Andrew Williams	...	Janek Langas
Cecilia Hjalmarsson	...	Birgitta Medberg
Rebekah Staton	...	Kristina Albinsson
Kenneth Branagh	...	Kurt Wallander
Mark Hadfield	...	Stefan Lindeman
Sarah Smart	...	Ann-Britt Hoglund
Maimie McCoy	...	Anna Westin
Carol Starks	...	Jennie Medberg
Jaspar Paavolainen	...	Alfred Medberg
Rasmus Paavolainen	...	Hjalmar Medberg
Dermot Keaney	...	Niklas Martinell
Emily Bruni	...	Lisa Pahlberg
Richard McCabe	...	Nyberg
Barnaby Kay	...	Lennart Mattson
Jeany Spark	...	Linda Wallander

Storyline

An elderly woman is murdered in a wood by a man she saw setting fire to swans. He buries her corpse with a bible annotating the book of Revelations and from his finger-prints he is identified as Jannek Langas, a religious maniac and arsonist. He has escaped from a secure unit but nonetheless has a healthy bank account in an assumed name. At the same time Anna, a friend of Linda, disappears after a cryptic visit to Wallander. Following Langas's suicide by immolation Wallander learns that Langas and Anna belonged to the same, fundamentalist Christian group and that other members are dying. Wallander must discover who is behind the killings and whether Anna is accomplice or victim - or even alive.

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Genres:

Crime | Thriller

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Details

Release Date:

23 September 2012 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Ystad Studios, Ystad, Skåne län, Sweden

Company Credits

User Reviews

Wallander's understanding of personal relationships helps him untangle a complex case

The Branagh "Before the Frost" is a welcome addition for Wallander fans. The story as done here is more pointed and perhaps fleshed out than the Swedish version while still being complex. The case is a challenge for Kurt that he meets. You can see him pondering the pieces and trying to fit them together.

Kurt's daughter Linda appears, and she is pregnant, which delights Kurt. They are reconciled. Kurt and she have a personal involvement in this case. It is Linda's close friend Anna who has gone missing and is associated with a religious cult. And Anna's mother is known to Kurt and may have had an affair with him years before.

The cinematography is excellent. The only negative, and this may be personal with me, is that there is too much sameness to the "music" that comes in almost every transitional scene in which Kurt is driving somewhere, or there is a mobile change of scenery; and this music is of the repetitive sort, where the same few notes are drummed out again and again. A little bit of this is suspenseful, but overdone it becomes a distraction and doesn't add.

The script seems to call for a good deal of hemming and hawing by Kurt. This gets a bit old too. Somehow in this episode it came through more than the previous two in this third series. The tone of the movie becomes sort of prosaic, what with the music and the soapiness of the relationships. It loses its edge. There's a fine line being walked here.