Det som ingen ved

Sick of the TV-tinsel-Christmas and with WiseKid and WiseGrandkid not coming until tomorrow, we opted for a film before the midnight service on Christmas Eve. We settled on the Danish filmmaker Søren Kragh-Jacobsen's Det som ingen ved (German: Was niemand weiß, English: What no one knows). The subtitle is "Vem kan du egentligen lita på?" (Whom can you trust?) It doesn't appear to have been shown in the States, probably put on a blacklist by the NSA.

I remember seeing it about 5 years ago (make that 2008) at the Nordic Film Festival, but I didn't remember the plot. Scenes began reappearing in my mind, and I remember some of the things I thought while watching the movie. "There's no one watching all those surveillance videos, they are just there to scare off thieves." "There can't be such a secret organization that knows how to kill people and is willing and able to do so just to keep their group secret." "The Danish government would never work hand in hand with the CIA like that."

Post-Snowden: It's worse than this. This film is sugar-coated, rose-colored glasses, just hinting at what we now know to be true. Truly amazing that the Danish Department of Defense (Forsvarskommandoen) let them film on location.

Yes, there are loose ends here and there: Thomas keeps coming up with cars that shouldn't be there, maps to hidden cabins appear by magic, Stockholm is just a short drive from Malmö. But still, the film should be revived, if only to make you ask some questions: What are all these cameras for? Why are they watching us? What is it, that they don't want us to know?