The Man From Majorca — The Man From Majorca( Blu Ray)
The Man From Majorca is a Swedish police procedural thriller directed in 1984 by Bo Widerberg. It is released by Radiance here on Blu-ray in a hi-def digital transfer with improved English subtitles. The film is Widerberg’s almost decade-long follow-up to his previous thriller The Man On The Roof (1976). During the intervening years, the director had mostly been occupied with various TV projects, the exception being the theatrical release Victoria (1979), a drama concerned with a cross-class relationship.
The Man From Majorca, like its predecessor, is mostly concerned with systemic failures of the Swedish institutions of law and order. A bold robbery of a post office by a single perpetrator brings two police officers, Bo Jarnebring (Sven Wolter) and “Johan” Johansson (Tomas von Bromssen) into a complicated and shady world of murders and intrigue involving the Swedish Minister for Justice and the country’s security organisations.
Whereas The Man On The Roof was adapted from one of Sjowall and Wahloo’s Martin Beck novels, The Man From Majorca is based on Leif G W Persson’s first novel featuring Jarnebring and Johansson, The Pig Party (1978), itself based on an actual political scandal, one Persson was intimately involved in. The Geijer Affair was named for the Minister of Justice whose use of prostitutes was known to the police who had informed the Prime Minister. Persson had talked to a journalist about the case and this led to him losing his position with the police.
The main difference in Widerberg’s approach this time is that the single middle-aged protagonist negotiating with his superiors and subordinates (Beck) is replaced with the dynamic of two youngish friends trying to do their job while overcoming restraints imposed by the powers that be. ‘Buddy cop’ movies have become a cliché now, usually with mismatched partners but this was relatively new in 1984. Here the men are alike in age, appearance and as well as their messy personal lives. The format was already familiar to English-speaking audiences, although through fairly frivolous examples like Starsky And Hutch (1975 – 1979) and The Professionals (1977-1983). The format here is at the service of another sincere, painstakingly realistic police procedural from Widerberg.
The director’s approach is as forensic, tight and concerned with minutiae as before. If anything, there is even less fat here. There is nothing as disconcerting as the gory murder that opens The Man On The Roof nor are there any ‘out of leftfield’ set pieces like the police helicopter almost crashing into a crowd. There are set pieces like the exhilarating burglary which opens the film or the sustained ‘French Connection’ type chase involving a suspect’s car. But they all seem of a piece with the material, set in a downbeat Stockholm of homeless people congregating and old ladies picking up their pensions.
The Man From Majorca is a worthwhile follow-up to The Man On The Roof showcasing Bo Widerberg’s combination of social realism, political commentary and genre-based thrills.
The Blu-ray from Radiance has frugal but solid extras. A visual essay from international crime fiction expert (and author of 2024’s Nordic Noir) Barry Forshaw gives a detailed background of the film and discusses its connection to the Geijer Affair at length. There is also a new twenty-four-minute interview with Harald Hamrell in which the director discusses his long history of working with Widerberg as actor, editor and eventually Assistant Director. There are also two short contemporary (1984) featurettes about the film.
This is another well-put-together package from Radiance which will be of particular interest to fans of Scandi Noir, Bo Widerberg and The Man On The Roof.