And then as farce: Globalization and ambivalence in Jo Nesbø and Morten Tyldum’s Headhunters (2011)

This article will consider the aesthetic strategies of genre dialogue and parody in Morten Tyldum’s 2011 film Hodejegerne/Headhunters, based on the novel by Norwegian writer Jo Nesbø. Situating the film within trans-national practices of production and distribution, the article argues that Tyldum and Nesbø’s film establishes a critical dialogue with its genre, its cinematic intertexts and the aesthetics of contemporary popular film. This dialogue in turn reflects and works through an ambivalence towards its own film-making contexts, and the socio-economic contexts of the global financial crisis within which both novel and film were produced. The article contends that such close study of the film’s ambivalent form provides a clearer picture of the practical issues confronting commercial cinema practices, in their efforts to negotiate national cinematic identity within a trans-national marketplace; as well as arguing for a more nuanced view of the way we read recent trends in the wider reception and discussion of popular world cinemas.