Customer Reviews

The White Lioness

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Fans of novelist Henning Mankell will enjoy this film, if only for the opportunity to see police inspector Kurt Wallander brought to life on the small screen. This film is only a loose adaptation of Mankell's novel (which is probably too complex to film in its entirety, in any case), and those expecting a faithful treatment may be a little disappointed; however, it succeeds in capturing the essence of Wallander's world, and that alone makes it worthwhile viewing. It's also a well-paced crime drama, with a suitably nail-biting climax.

TV adaptations of most of Mankell's novels have been made, but so far this is the only one that seems to be widely available outside of Sweden. Let's hope that someone sees fit to release the rest of them!

I watched this movie first, then now reading the original novel.

Obviously, this movie seems going after "The day of the Jackel" in many points, and different far from its original.
But I take this movie, rather than the novel.
This movie is free from most of the defects of the original - the lack of consistency (though still opportunistic in some points).

Besides, you can travel the scenes of both of Swedish suburben and South African city (mostly its people's life scenes).

The images are graceful, from which you would feel the dark, cold atmosphere of southern Sweden, and dry South African air.

And I suppose I don't mind the darkness of its images another reviewer pointed out based on the VHS edition - the staff might consider her/his cliticism when they produced this DVD edition.

A strong entry in the unfortunately sparse selection of the Rolf Lassgard series on DVD with English subtitles. Stays very close to the book. Good juxtaposition of Swedish and South African landscapes and climates.

For fans of Henning Mankell's mystery novels featuring the Swedish police inspector, Kurt Wallander...

...for fans of the recent three-story television series, Wallander, with Kenneth Branagh as the Ystad inspector...

...try this Swedish film, The White Lioness (Den Vita Lejoninnan), made in 1996. The movie doesn't have the intricacies, character depth or lengthy and involved plot threads of the book, but come on now. The White Lioness is 500 pages of densely written prose. The movie runs just 104 minutes.

In this time the movie manages to pack the basic story line, which is a tricky, serious story about a political assassination, planned in South Africa to take place in Scandinavia, with action, steady detection and style. Equally important, The White Lioness gives us an excellent Kurt Wallander played by the Swedish actor Rolf Lassgard. We have a Wallander who is in his forties, a big, rumpled man edging toward being seriously overweight, especially around the jowls, a lonely man who drinks too much, a cop who is authoritative and respected. Unlike the Branagh version, as good as it was, this Kurt Wallander, while lonely and sad at times, doesn't make such a big deal of it.

With Wallander, we're in the middle of what seems to be a puzzle: An attractive real estate agent goes missing and is later found in the boot of a car with a bullet hole in her forehead. Unlike Wallander, we saw it happen and why. Right from the start we know white extremist Afrikaners in South Africa are planning to assassinate somewhere in Scandinavia a major South African leader. We even meet the icy ex-KGB man this group has hired to mastermind the operation. He's called Konovalenko. Jesper Christensen plays him with calm, convincing ruthlessness. We meet Victor Mabasha (Tshamano Sebe), the hitman who will work with Konovalenko and who finds himself out of his depth. We see the two of them establish themselves in a small, empty house in the snowy countryside outside Ystad. We meet a Cape Town police detective named John September (Basil Appolis) who knows something is happening but not why or how or when.

We see a lot of Ystad, a lot of Swedish countryside, all of it cold and covered with the dirty remnants of old snow. We see a good deal of Cape Town, too, and the shantytowns where the blacks must live, even if they're police inspectors. We tag along after Wallander in Ystad and Cape Town, watching him laboriously put the pieces together. On those cold days and cold, cold nights around Ystad, cold murder takes place, The final shootout, with a high-powered rifle versus a car, is so startling and well visualized that we're almost as upset and queasy afterwards as Kurt Wallander was.

Just as with the book, The White Lioness is as much a vivid and complicated story of the planning and foiling of an assassination as it is a look at what South Africa had been and, with Nelson Mandela, is on the brink of becoming. The movie is part tricky plotting, part police procedural (interspersed with effective sequences of chases and violence) and part mild political primer. The White Lioness worked so well for me because it gives a fine Kurt Wallander by Rolf Lassgard, thoughtful, smart and probably tied too closely to his job for his own good.

The DVD is bare bones with just a "start movie" button and a chapter access button. The movie is in English and Swedish with English subtitles. It's also automatic. There is no "set up" button to hit. The subtitles, used when Swedish is being spoken, are white on black and easy to read. The picture quality is adequate.

I bought this movie and in spite of having the great Jesper Chritensen in one of the roles..

..I could not get past the LOW production quailty from the sound, to the cheap film transfer and boring beginning.

Don't waste your time. Sorry, but it is mediocre and just because Mankell fans such as myself are starved for his material stateside, we cannot pretend this is good to quench our collective thirsts. Lets just be honest! It sucks!

Not as good as the book this film is based upon, but Rolf Lassgard is great as Wallander!

My husband and I have read almost all of H Mankell's books. We love the way this man writes, his descriptions of the weather, the landscapes, the characters; and, his stories - extraordinary!
"The White Lioness", "Sidetracked", "Firewall", "One Step Behind", the Stieg Larsson trilogy's Swedish movies. We highly recommend them all!
Anyone reading this, we welcome recommendations!
I recommend the Stieg Larsson bloggers' website for recommendations re writers and movies.

For those who have read the novel The White Lioness and are expecting a faithful adaptation, this movie is not for you. While it is understandable that many times plots are rewritten for film, the sudden change of the assasination attempt from South Africa to Norway is confusing to me. The photography of the film leaves much to be desired too. The lighting is simply too dark, making it almost impossible to see the faces of the many black characters in this film. I've seen movies from Scandinavia better made than this one. If you want a good suspensful Scandinavian movie, try Insomnia instead.

Pretty Good for Swedish, I think Made for TV, international detective movie