"Ole Bornedal's smart, propulsive thriller Deliver Us from Evil opens on a deserted coastal road as the film's narrator, a garishly dressed young woman, quickly introduces us to the film's principal characters. They include Anna, the angelic wife of the town's unofficial mayor, Ingvar, a veteran of the Second World War; Johannes and Pernille, an upscale couple who recently relocated to the countryside because they were worried about raising their...
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"Ole Bornedal's smart, propulsive thriller Deliver Us from Evil opens on a deserted coastal road as the film's narrator, a garishly dressed young woman, quickly introduces us to the film's principal characters. They include Anna, the angelic wife of the town's unofficial mayor, Ingvar, a veteran of the Second World War; Johannes and Pernille, an upscale couple who recently relocated to the countryside because they were worried about raising their children in a big city like Copenhagen; Alain, a Bosnian refugee who lost his family to the conflict and is now doing odd jobs for Johannes; and finally, Johannes's ne'er-do-well brother Lars, whom we first meet barreling down the same stretch of country road as Anna, pissed out of his gourd.
Barely sensate, Lars hits a bump and discovers he's run over Anna. Horrified, he hides her corpse and hurriedly devises a plot to blame things on the one person everyone will automatically suspect: Alain.
Deliver Us from Evil plays with the structure of Sam Peckinpah's classic Straw Dogs, transposing it to rural Denmark. But whereas the earlier work focused on an intellectual who ran from conflict (specifically the Vietnam War) only to find he couldn't escape it, Bornedal's film concentrates primarily on contradictions within the community, emphasizing the rampant xenophobia and class divisions.
Here the outside world is seen as a threat, most notably by the ultra-conservative Ingvar, who's superficially tough but has been a virtual shell since his son died as part of a United Nations mission to the former Yugoslavia. (Alluding to both Alain and his lost son, he complains that every time there's a problem elsewhere, people run to Denmark.) Though he loathes the younger working-class (actually unemployed) louts in the community, they share most of his prejudices.
Urban refugees and liberals Johannes and Pernille further complicate the portrait. More sensitive and aware of proprieties than the area's other denizens, they nonetheless harbour similar biases. Desperately trying to ingratiate themselves with Alain, they come across as condescending.
Bornedal and his collaborators leave us no conventional refuges, and the film's use of oversaturated colours reflects this moral nausea. Disturbing and corrosive, Deliver Us from Evil runs roughshod over political assumptions and prejudices."
Quoting Cameron Bailey on the 2009 TIFF site.
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