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The Man from Majorca: Limited Edition
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - United Kingdom - Radiance Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (4th February 2025). |
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The Film
 International Fantasy Film Award (Best Film): Bo Widerberg (nominee) - Fantasporto, 1986 Guldbagge (Best Actor): Sven Wollter (winner) - Guldbagge Awards, 1985 Mystfest (Best Film): Bo Widerberg (nominee) - Mystfest, 1985 On St. Lucia's Day, an assailant robs a busy Stockholm post office in the middle of the day without a shot fired and only one employee knocked out of his path. Surveilling a whorehouse nearby, vice cops Jarnebring (The 13th Warrior's Sven Wollter) and Johansson (My Life as a Dog's Tomas von Brömssen) respond first and Johansson chases the assailant on foot but he manages to evade him by cutting through a school. Although they bristle about not being included in the Violent Crime meeting on the case, Jarnebring is pragmatic about the crime which was "not exactly The Great Train Robbery" but something is nagging at Johansson. The members of the Violent Crime team lead by Dahlgren (Fanny and Alexander's Ernst Günther) and Andersson (Håkan Serner) are similarly puzzled by the robber's composure, efficiency, and seeming local knowledge that allowed him to execute what could have become a massacre in more amateur hands. None of the eyewitnesses can give any more detail about the assailant before he masked himself other than being an average-looking, middle-aged man. Jarnebring and Johansson pursue their own investigation with what trickles down from upstairs and among their criminal informants. Parallel investigations by Andersson of the murder of a fifty-seven year old bum (Night Games' Sten Lonnert) who was one of the witnesses and Jarnebring's and Johansson's lead on a twenty-two year old ex-con (singer Niels Jensen) who Johansson saw at the school during the chase and may have been conducting his own investigation before he was killed in an apparent road accident (for which even official channels can provide no definitive information on the driver), and the presence of both of them in year-old photographs of a tourist group in Majorca which happens to also include a member of Security Services. Based on the novel "Pig Party" by criminologist/crime novelist Leif G.W. Persson (Bäckström) whose whistle-blowing of the scandal that inspired the film cost him his job on the police force, The Man from Majorca marked the return to the screen of director Bo Widerberg after a little less than a decade and by virtue of its genre a companion piece to his earlier Man on the Roof which also starred Wollter leading to an in-joke here about whether one of the vice cop duo changed their name (and based on a novel by more internationally-known Swedish crime novelist team Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö). In contrast to the lyrical look and sound of Elvira Madigan, Widerberg employs a kinetic style here from exhilarating handheld footchases, driving scenes in which the camera is mounted to the car facing the license plate and the ground rushing underneath the body, careening camera moves and quick cuts depicting the efficiency of the heist, and jabbing edits depicting the sailing of a body struck by a car through the air. The first third of the film keeps the audience in the dark as to how various storylines will intersect, cutting off two of them quite brutally as they finally do reach the attention of the investigators. As the investigation continues, Jarneberg and Johansson seem more in pursuit of prestige than justice, their department and rank having been described as the "ape house" by Security Service rival Hedberg (Sounds of Silence's Rico Rönnbäck) believably coloring their perspective when he becomes a suspect. The revelations of a number of false based on coincidence are also quite believable. As the story progresses, the scandal that inspired the novel seems like backstory to the heist story only for the film to reveal that people in power are willing to vouch for a suspect for their own self-interest and the question of his guilt in a robbery and two homicides is irrelevant to people "playing politics." All of the character are cynical, which may be why so many of these injustices go unpunished or even unnoticed, but Wollter and von Brömssen give the film warmth and are believably discouraged at the end when the it is evident that they are beaten by more dab hands at cover-ups and those directing them who simply do not care about regular people be they the robber's victims or those whose social services funding they gouge with a chuckle. In spite of this invigorating genre work, Widerberg only directed two other dramatic features in between television projects before his death in 1997. 
Video
Only shown on television in the United Kingdom, The Man from Majorca has been available on television and VHS in Scandinavian countries with the first DVD release in Sweden only in an eight-disc boxed set of HD-mastered Widerberg films. The DVD was not English-friendly, but Studio S' 2022 Blu-ray included English subtitles for the feature but not the extras. We do not know if the HD master provided by Svensk Filmindustri is the 2011 restoration or a newer one but Radiance Films' 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.66:1 widescreen Blu-ray looks spectacular given the wintry setting and muted eighties aesthetic. The opening and closing credits might have been redone as they are quite clean in terms of grain reproduction while a handful of other opticals including binocular mattes look coarser even compared to a couple darker available light night shots. Presumably this is the same master used for the Swedish Blu-ray. 
Audio
The film as mixed in Dolby Stereo but the Swedish LPCM 2.0 track only has rare moments of directionality during the action scenes while the surround field is used mainly for atmosphere and giving spread to the electronic score. Dialogue is always clear but while the dialogue was recorded on the set, the film's assistant director does reveal in his interview below that there were times in shot-reverse shot conversations where Widerberg would use lines read offscreen for the actor's onscreen take. Optional English subtitles are free of any noticeable errors. 
Extras
Radiance Films ports all of the Swedish discs extras and have also included the new interview with Barry Forshaw, author of "Nordic Noir" (17:02) who provides some background on Persson's career and his media personality, his whistle-blowing and contemplating suicide before becoming a lecturer and writer. Forshaw distinguishes Persson's approach to crime writing from his Scandi contemporaries, noting that he uses the genre to highlight the fault lines of Swedish society, and that his novels paint a more realistic portrait of Sweden than the social democratic ideal of sexual freedom international viewers have developed from more popular exports. He also provides background on the film - including the more immediate real-world context for the adaptation in the 1986 assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme which brought concerns over terrorism into public discussion - including the fact that the two stars only shot their scenes on Mondays because they were concurrently performing on stage in Shakespeare and Ibsen productions, as well as how the film and Man on the Roof differ from Widerberg's better-known films. In the interview with assistant director Harald Hamrell (24:19) who was fifteen or sixteen when he replaced another assistant on Man on the Roof on which he witnessed an explosive argument between Widerberg and the lighting team that he later realized was a means of getting a reaction out of the performers. He recalls the production phase of The Man from Majorca as stressful but learned a lot working with Widerberg on the editing phase. The 1983 on-set reportage (2:14) interviews the director and cast during the staging of the car chase while the 1984 TV interview with director Bo Widerberg (3:08) takes place at the fish and chip shop where the two protagonists hang out throughout the film. The disc also includes the film's teaser trailer (0:28). 
Packaging
The limited edition pressing of 3,000 copies is presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings and comes with a reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters and a booklet featuring new writing (not supplied for review). 
Overall
The meaning of the title The Man from Majorca itself appears to be a McGuffin, but this proves entirely fitting in a film about the true priorities of those in power under the guise of upholding justice.
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