Cold Case Hammarskjöld

I really looked forward to seeing this doc, first half was actually pretty dull even though the topic is interesting to me. Of course, I already knew about the "twist" and, sure enough, when we got to that part, the film got much better and more interesting.

But the format of the documentary copied Icarus too much for me not to have alarm bells going off as I watched it. It just seemed...too much...and yet not quite enough.

The revelation in the second half, if it were to be true, would be one of the most monstrous acts any group of people have committed on another since WWII.

But how reliable is the one "witness' to all this? With no additional evidence, just fragmentary clues pieced roughly together, I cannot say.

That's why the framing of the film itself leaves me suspicious.

Chutzpah is what defines the making of this movie! To be sure the basic facts about Hammarskjöld's death are historically accurate. And thereafter, everything is made up (or so I guess), spinal tap style. And all the conspiracy stuff after the 'exposition of the "facts" ' only helps to obscure the fact the "documentary" is made up. Smoke and mirrors, including very creative "intelligence" sources, from likely suspicious locations (my favorite is the South African Maritime Research Institute no one heard of!). At one level this is brilliant and funny. However, once you have figured out the angle of the script, it wears off quickly, like a one-joke movie. Still, a tour-de-force, in its own way. Alan Partridge would approve.

Cold Case Hammarskjold is not a movie for the faint of heart or uninitiated to complex and hard hitting documentaries, but for this who want a satisfying mystery that will test your brainpower and one that's not only exciting and but also one that's very historically important, especially if what the filmmakers uncovered and discovered came into full effect, how different the world would be today then I can not recommend this movie enough. It has some brutal subject matter that may be disturbing to some, but the twists and just plane insanity of this documentary make it hard to find anything wrong with it. It's a true testament to you "gotta see it to believe it" but it's very true, if Cold Case Hammarskjold end up playing near you, I strongly recommend that you see it.

The first half of this documentary reads as a kind of sly, long con in which the film maker has somehow managed to get funding for a multi-year, multi location field trip. He can't believe his luck and starts off thinking much of the initial story is some kind of elaborate hoax.

Much to his surprise as he and the other investigator quite literally dig deeper they are rewarded by a much bigger story that is actually quite shocking.

However we can't quite be sure if the super witnesses are the real thing or actors playing a part. The secondary story seems to me to be the quite serious and deserving of a follow up.

The initial story around the death of the UN's Secretary general at the time does give us more context and that part of the story has quite rightly attracted a number of headline stories.

The secondary tall tales seem quite feasible but the tone of the overall expedition / documentary seem more mockumentary like. The format seems il suited to the secondary and more mysterious context and politics.

This is very much like that moment in Jaws where the character says - "we're gonna need a bigger boat" but he does recognise this but only in an oblique way.

This discordant contrast between the jokey tone of the initial story and the wider context makes it hard to know what it is that we have just seen. At times the style is very meta with Mads Brügger ( director & one of the investigators) unsure what to do with all of the revelations.

I personally hope that some other journalists or investigators follow up on this. If the director gets to film a part 2 I'm up for it.

Seasoned Danish jinvestigative journalist Mads Brugger has the soul of a cultural anthropologist, as 'Cold Case Hammerskjold'bears witness. Accompanying Swedish private investigator Goran Bjorkdahl, in whose possession is a 'bullet' riden metal plate he suspects belonged to the airplane in which UN Secretary General Dag Hammerskjold was shot down and died. Brugger's documentary is an exercise in re-engaggin with the past to elucidate the events and leads pointing to Hammerskjold's death on 18 September 1961, as he going to meet Moise Tchombe leader of the copper and mineral rich province of the newly independent Congo (ex Belge), in Northern Rhodesia (today Zambi To me, then a schoolboy in Africa, the documentary conjures up vivid memory of the heady days of decolonization and dashed hopes from the grips of colonial powers. For we never doubted that the black hand of the US, UK, Belgium and South Africa had something to Hammerksjold's demise, directly or through its hired hands or secret ops. The assassination of Hammerskjold is story synonymous with villainy. Bjorkdahl's investigation of this cold case is ongoing in the Congo.Brugger's script is dissection of a cultural and political ethos that breaks down a complex picture in to manageable and credible detail, for a wider lens of the killing of a UN secretary general. Hammerskjold the man's 'Markings', a best seller, is replete with hope and poetry, but he had a cold eye for the darkness in the heart of men. He had high hopes that once liberated from the shackles of colonialism, the newly independent could purpose freely the interests of their country and people. This conceit was an anathema for colonial powers who reluctantly let their colonies one by one go, peacefully or through war. In other words, Hammerskjold was a dangerous man who had to be stopped. Brugger, ably assisted by Bjorkdahl, tries to role play, even to thee point of wearing white clothing, to appear like the head of the South African 'Commander' who leader a secret mercenary entity--the South African Institute of Maritime Research. SAIMR engaged in endless bag of bag, inimical tricks. Like underground runner roots, SAIMR engaged in assassination, guerilla warfare, biological and medical tricks, including suspicion of spreading HIV among black Africans to eradicate them. The pair discover the name of the Belgium who shot down Hammerskjold, the role of the CIA, British MI6 and South African secret services whose SAIRM may have been an arm of the British black arts. AS such, even some evidenc presented to SA's Truth and Reconciliation panel proved too hot to consider, hence in the case of SAIRM biologist Daphne Friel's murder, was soundly ignored. Brugger and Bjorkdhaal did something obvious: they interviewed Zambian blacks who had memories of Hamerskjold plane shot down. Something which the powers that be ignored, as they had had when their colonized subjects were once chose to ignore or see or hear, less than human they! And Brugger unravels his approach bu hiring two black secretaries, whom he questions about his work and approach. Two women of intelligence who question serious his asssertions. And, moreover respects, a neat tour de force. After six years on the ground, Brugger wraps up his findings as Bjorkdhal like the will of the wisp tries to track down SAIMR's biologial in the interior of the Congo. This unusal film deerves to be seen and as the death of Hammerskjold discloses revisit a sad chapter in African history, and the refusal of the US and colonial Europe to cast aside their loss of identity as imeprialists.