Beginning a film with a view of a barren, desert landscape and a voiceover describing a strange local myth about a two-headed cow, a bog and a town may seem odd, but "Terribly Happy," a 2008 Danish drama that opened in limited release in the United States in February 2010, does just that. The film follows a newly transferred policeman as he moves to a new town and encounters its eccentric inhabitants in the process. Through a mélange of Western, police drama, film noir and a dash of dark comedy, "Terribly Happy" peers into the day-to-day life of a remote Danish town.
The film, directed by Henrik Ruben Genz, takes each of its genres seriously, rather than using them as fodder for parody. The combination of Western and film noir, in particular, works quite well with the figure of the lone hero trying to find his way through a foreign landscape. The policeman, Robert (Jakob Cedergren), often strolls about town and into the local bar as if it were a saloon, but he is always wearing the kind of paranoid look found in the shadowy world of a film noir.
Robert comes as a disgraced cop to the frontier town of Skarrild, a far cry from his home in Copenhagen. His overseeing officer advises him to stay out of local business as much as possible. However, Robert becomes involved in the affairs of a femme fatale named Ingerlise (Lene Maria Christensen) — who wears the guise of a troubled woman — before he has even settled into his post for a single day.
Ingerlise tells Robert that her husband, Jorgen (Kim Bodnia), abuses her. This would be simple enough if it didn't seem like the entire town already knew about the abuse and was consciously doing nothing about it. Then there's always the problem of Robert's attraction to Ingerlise.
As Robert probes other townspeople for information and deals with personal problems (a child steals from a store, and the owner insists that Robert personally beat him), he becomes aware that there is a particular way of doing things in Skarrild. He keeps hearing talk of a bog where things (as well as people) seem to vanish. Robert's investigation keeps going awry, and he runs out of people to turn to.
Ingerlise and Jorgen keep appearing in Robert's life, and he eventually becomes involved with Ingerlise, triggering a chain of events that ultimately allows Robert a sort of second chance after his estrangement from his family. The ordeal with Ingerlise and her family helps Robert to find his place in the town, although this one measure of happiness is not without its flip-side.
The film is slow at times, but it settles into a steady, creepy pace. All of the townspeople are appropriately strange and amusing, and the sense of the town as a character in itself is strong. Genz deftly juggles his chosen genres and uses their tropes for moments of comedy and entertainment — such as a drinking contest filmed with the energy of a shootout.
"Terribly Happy" works on a number of levels, not least of which is its portrayal of the small-town mentality against outsiders — evident in the townspeople's treatment of Robert. The film gets at an issue of xenophobia that is easily applicable to many places and people, and this universality gives the movie much of its power.
Robert's quest is not just one of finding justice, but also of finding somewhere that he belongs. The film doesn't forget that, despite the quaintness or innocence of a small town. Every town has a place to put the things it doesn't want others to see; every town has a bog.
