Word: widerberg
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...DIED. BO WIDERBERG, 66, Swedish writer-director of trenchant films about young outsiders; of undisclosed causes; in Angelholm, Sweden. From his smart, sensitive Raven's End (1963) to the Lolita-in-reverse All Things Fair (1995), Widerberg sympathized with kids who valiantly and vainly fought the system. His 1967 hit Elvira Madigan, a lusciously limned story of love on the run, put Piano Concerto No. 21 on the charts. Mozart never sounded so sexy as when he underscored the doomed nuzzling of Pia Degermark and Thommy Berggren...
...nowhere near as important as those of what he is and why he is there, elements absent from most conventional mysteries. If you like to pick up cleverly strewn clues and try to beat the heroes to the inevitable punch, you'll be disappointed, for Widerberg has something very different in mind, although he uses the mystery vehicle very well...
...Here Widerberg begins to make his point. What is a policeman, after all? To some, he is an esteemed protector of law and order. To others, he is a licensed thug, doing society's dirty work to maintain the status quo. Of course, the truth lies somewhere between those two extremes, as Widerberg tries to show. One cannot assume that a cop is good solely because he is a cop. But this does not necessarily imply the opposite--the killer is not justified just because his target is evil hiding behind a facade of goodness. Some men are good, some...
...WIDERBERG provides two compelling portraits of men of flawed character behind the socially acceptable role of public servant. One is Lt. Hult, the victim's sidekick, a vicious bully who proudly wears his uniform on his day off. The other is the Commissioner, who presents a slick media image but is completely ineffective when presented with the crisis that ends the film. Both are scoundrels, but they are also cops, which blinds most people to their failings. Widerberg will have no such nonsense, and therein lies the strength of Man on the Roof...
...film is technically superb as well. The cinematography is excellent; Widerberg avoids typical shots and mixes in a few striking ones, including a terrifying glimpse of the murderer's eye peering through the drapes of the hospital room. He effectively cuts back again and again to the bloody scene of the crime, and as the suspense builds towards the end, he moves back and forth with devastating effect between the horror in the streets and some incredibly mundane dialogue. The tension mounts toward a swift climax, and although the ending is a bit too abrupt and ideologically confusing...