A 100-Year-Old Crime Unit Brought Back to Life
With the film Rejseholdet – The First Murder, the nearly 100-year-old Danish police unit is revived. And according to one of the film’s actors, history-based fiction can be a powerful storytelling tool, when used correctly.
In Rejseholdet – The First Murder, technical expert PR, played by Nicolaj Kopernikus, joins the special police unit on the hunt for a brutal killer in the 1920s. While PR is a fictional character, he is rooted in historical reality. For Kopernikus, it is important not to directly copy history or historical figures in filmmaking, but rather to use them as a backdrop for creating fiction. Because one thing is absolutely essential:
“If people cannot relate to a story, they lose interest,” he says.
The film’s lead detective, Otto Himmelstrup, portrayed by Alex Høgh Andersen, is, unlike PR, a real historical figure. Himmelstrup founded the original Rejseholdet, Denmark’s mobile police unit, just over a century ago.
“With Rejseholdet, we are playing a kind of game. We are creating something set in 1927 and portraying characters while trying to stay close to reality. But the truth is, we do not really know that reality beyond what we have been able to read,” adds Nicolaj Kopernikus.
The film follows Otto Himmelstrup, PR, and Camilla, played by Mathilde Arcel, as they work to uncover a highly unusual murder mystery. The mobile police unit is originally formed to investigate a string of arson cases, but when a body is discovered in a burned-down summer house in Esbjerg, their mission takes a dark turn. The trio is soon drawn into a complex web of power struggles and corruption involving the city’s elite.
Rejseholdet – The First Murder is directed by Christoffer Boe and produced by Nordisk Film, with support from the Danish Film Institute, in collaboration with TV 2 and with funding from the Polish Film Institute. The film has already attracted nearly 300,000 Danish moviegoers to cinemas.