The Sinner” is a kind of monologue, where everything takes place in one room, relying on sound effects, voiceover and mimicry to immerse and empathize with the protagonist at the same time, and the audience has to rely on a lot of brainstorming to be able to imagine another part of the unpresented images. From this perspective, “The Sinner” is more akin to literature than a film, requiring the audience to use their own subjective imagination to participate in the construction of the text.
Some people say that the film sometimes reminds of the use of techniques in Buried Alive, but it is more reminiscent of the Tom Hardy film Locke, in which a man in a closed space keeps answering the phone, accompanied by the emotion of a possible breakdown at any moment. Only this time the hero Asger Holm is a police officer, because involved in a lawsuit was temporarily transferred to the police operator platform, he spent his days facing alcoholics and disgruntled women on the other end of the phone boring taunts, until by chance received a strange call for help from a lady, the tone is evasive and urgent, Asger Holm still heard the difference, has been communicating with her in various coded language, roughly know She was kidnapped by her ex-husband and was in a van heading to an unknown destination. He began to do his best to coordinate police efforts to find the vehicle and contacted the woman’s children at home. He feels that he is doing everything right, but eventually realizes that things were pointing in the wrong direction from the beginning.
The story of “The Sinner” is strictly confined to a single room, with no exterior shots, the camera forced on the hero’s face, the lights dropping down, and the only ebb and flow being his facial expressions. Formally, it’s more like a single-camera documentary, someone with a camera accidentally bumped into this dramatic scene in the answering platform, and there was no other way but to point the camera at him, so that’s all there is, following his joy and sorrow, trying to collect and listen to the tiny sounds on the other end of the receiver – the wind rattling, the rain dripping down The door swayed and creaked, sobbing, sighing, hanging up the busy tone …… sound more and more urged us to weave images in the brain itself, hidden but more visible. The cramped space is like a cage that cannot be broken through, but the sound can be extended infinitely to connect to the vast world outside. The unique force of the paradox and tear between the two makes this film.
“Space” has a special meaning for this film, firstly, it is the physical space, the unique relationship between this room and the outside world, and secondly, more importantly, it is the psychological space and spiritual space. The bright line of the story is about Asger Holm rescuing a kidnapping case, while the dark line is about him rescuing himself. The story explains the dark line in a very restrained way, as he is involved as a police officer in a case where the trial is imminent, and he conspires with his colleagues in the hope of getting himself out and returning to work. If the phone call he is making to rescue the hostage is the physical body of the drama, then the case that is buried in his heart is the spirit of the drama, this table and the inside are interlocked into a delicate structure, pulling each other tighter and tighter.
The reference to the “sinner” in the film is sometimes ambiguous and sometimes clear, sometimes pointing to the outside, and ultimately to himself. At first, it is clear that the “sinner” refers to the person on the other end of the phone who is committing the crime, but in the end, it becomes clear that the sinner is not someone else but Asger Holm himself. Like all stories that emphasize form, “The Sinner” is destined to be full of reversals, as the model of the woman as the victim and the ex-husband as the perpetrator is shattered, and the woman is the perpetrator, having killed one of her children because of a mental illness. Is what he did right or wrong? So, is this a story about good intentions doing bad things? In a way, the sudden call for help from the outside world and the ongoing case on the other end of the line is a revelation, a test and a reminder that Asger Holm, like a lost sheep, is releasing himself after this one incident. At first he wanted to cover up his crime, but now he decided to admit his identity as a “sinner”. Therefore, “The Sinner” has a strong religious consciousness and atonement complex, and through an outward search and intervention, he completes an inward self-examination and moral reconstruction. Did what happened behind the phone call really happen or not? Perhaps it is no longer so important that everything has not been seen in person, only that a voice from afar changes a person, which already seems like a divine revelation.
