At this point, callingMads Mikkelsena king of fictional villainy is no mere exaggeration. Western media’s flaws aside, America has provided fertile ground forMikkelsen to conquer almost every major franchiseof note.IndianaJones and the Dial of Destinymarks his latest cinematic Mount Everest, but let’s be honest for a moment: most of these IP movies barely gave him any material upon which to wield his not-insignificant charms. “But Hollywood villains aren’t supposed to be nuanced!” you cry. I hear you. To call an “evil to the core” Mads Mikkelsen performance unentertaining is a falsehood (translation: you don’t know how to have fun). But for his best work in the shoes of a complicated bad guy — a mixture of outlandish black comedy, heart-in-throat unease, and pathos characteristic of the Cannes Award-winning performer — we turn to the year 2003 and Mikkelsen’s home country.
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What Is the Danish Film ‘The Green Butchers’ About?
In Denmark’sThe Green Butchers, a feature written and directed byAnders Thomas Jensen, Svend (Mikkelsen) and Bjarne (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) are colleagues at a local butcher shop. Inspired by the poor quality of their boss Holger’s (Ole Thestrup) sausage (I swear that isn’t an innuendo) and fed up with Holger’s trivializing insults, the pair open a rival establishment. Bjarne doesn’t passionately approach his job at either shop. Svend’s the one that has emotion in spades. (There’s nothing he loves more than the preparation and serving of delicious meat!) A combination of fervor and spite convinces Svend he can do better than Holger. Indeed, following a disastrous no-show opening day, the butcher pair experiences an overnight business boom of immense proportions.
The ironic hiccup to this successlies in its cannibal origins. Svend accidentally locked a poor hapless electrician in the meat locker overnight. He discovers this unfortunate fact mere moments before Holger arrives at the shop to demand Svend prove how good of a butcher he is by catering Holger’s dinner that night. The resulting “chicken” meat is so incredible, the neighborhood lines up around the block just from word-of-mouth. And Svend’s excuse to Bjarne when the latter finds a dead man’s corpse? He panicked. Whoops. Bjarne initially goes along with this excuse out of sympathy for the tremulous other man. But Svend doesn’t quit his bad habit, and personal turmoil eventually renders Bjarne’s moral objections moot.
For those needing a briefer on Denmark’s film scene,The Green Butchers' Anders Thomas Jensen is an indie filmmaker whose contribution to the tiny country’s esteemed position in the international movie landscape can’t be overstated. Jensen was a member ofDenmark’s influentialDogme 95filmmaking movementand had his hands in some of the biggest local hits and notable overseas exports. He won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 1998 forElection Nightwhile he penned the scripts for fellowDogme 95directorSusanne Bier’sOpen HeartsandAfter the Wedding(the latter of which was nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film). So farhe and Mikkelsen have collaboratedon all his directorial features, suggesting a satisfying rapport conducive to their respective creativity.
Mikkelsen’s Performance Is as Nuanced as ‘The Green Butchers’ Script
Although Mikkelsen’s career can’t escape fictionalized cannibalism,Hollywood’s tendency toward typecasting European actors in antagonist roleshas left the actor’s comedic instincts largely untapped outside Denmark. Murders aside, Svend is a hot mess. He’s particular about things, whether it’s the color of the shop’s opening day balloons, their business cards' gold lamination, or cooking meat. In his words, “fine” isn’t good enough. And his high-strung methodicalness descends into frantic, fidgety panic with barely any external impetus. He’s socially awkward even though his personality tics are harmless (at first). That awkwardness stems in no small part from constant ridicule. Jensen even tries to minimize Mikkelsen’s attractiveness (a daunting task) by emphasizing Svend’s propensity to sweat and having the actor wear his hair constantly slicked back behind an exaggeratedly high hairline.
However,The Green Butchersrevels in playing with expectations. Svend has a sympathetic backstory that (after Bjarne deadpans about hearing his tale of woe multiple times) is approached with kind solemnity. Being orphaned at a young age and targeted as a social outcast means Svend has never felt loved. His preposterous rationalizations for continuing his unethical business practices come down to the simple fact that selling good food has made the community treat him with care and respect. As theBrooklyn Nine-Ninequote goes, “Cool motive, still murder,” but Svend’s otherwise relatable in almost every regard. It’s a character archetype Mikkelsen called his preferencein a recentGQmagazine profile: “The losers are fun. Because we know them. You might have been in that situation yourself sometimes.”
Svend’s enough of a good guy at heart (or at least a complex person in an “only in the movies” high-pressure situation) to admit he needs help, cry, and attempt to avoid condemning Bjarne’s brother Eigil (also Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and girlfriend Astrid (Line Kruse) to a night in the meat locker. Then, he resigns himself. Mikkelsen plays these moments with a melancholic reflection as honest and quietly intensive as any of his higher-profile prestige dramas. A master of the art of micro-acting, giving adevastating performance that’ll leave a hole in your heartwith the slightest eye twitch or furrowed mouth providing more insight into a character’s psyche than a Shakespearian soliloquy. Mikkelsen can easily slip into any persona and inhabit it with the qualifications required, but what’s trademark is that restraint on the surface that’s anything but on the inside.
‘The Green Butchers’ Mixes Comedy and Menace
The Mikkelsen death glare is equally familiar and deceptively subdued. Svend commits intentional malevolence the more he kills, and his face resembles the placid, frosty calm of an undisturbed winter lake. Even when he tries to absolve Bjarne of any crimes and despite the film’s quirkily happy ending, it’s hard not to wonder if bad decisions unleashed a monster and if Svend would ever truly stop. After all, overwhelming panic aside, this guy sold human remains to his eager customers, named his special recipe “Svend’s chicky-wickies,” and listened to dramatic music while whipping up his marinade.
Through all of this, Mikkelsen delivers lines like “It’s barbecue season, it’s no time to break up!” with an absolute straight face. Not once is there a hint of a joke, even when he’s egregiously lying through his teeth or darting around the restaurant trying to hide from Bjarne’s eyesight like a little kid caught breaking the rules. Comedy of any kind is a fine-line dance. Balancing a bleak fever dream of a plot with laugh-out-loud dialogue, genuine sincerity, and a growing ominous shadow, is a high-wire act.Mikkelsen balances the triple threatof being deeply unsettling, sympathetic, and hysterical with a virtuoso’s skill. Even though it would be years before his Hollywood villain streak took off and Svend doesn’t qualify as a clear-cut archetype of any kind, make no mistake. When presented with the choice, even if he doesn’t love the situation and stumbled into crime without suavity, Svend will concoct any excuse to toss a nuisance into the meat locker to sell some chicky-wickies and excuse it in the name of feeling loved.
Hollywood Should Write Mads Mikkelsen Better Villains — He Deserves It!
The Green Butchersmight not present a villain in the traditional sense, but Denmark isn’t often in the business of such delineations.Even Mads Mikkelsen’s more nefarious rolesin his home country were men formed from their circumstances rather than sheer psychopathy or to fulfill a good vs. evil narrative necessity. Perhaps this is part of what differentiates Mikkelsen’s uncanny abilities and why he’s reigned supreme as the king of the modern villains, even though any actor worth their salt finds their antagonist’s humanity. Svend’s desperation carries slightly similar shades to Le Chiffre, James Bond’s bleeding-eyed nemesis inCasino Royale, which happens to remain Mikkelsen’s best mainstream performance. None of the actor’s roles are played as dull, even if written on the page as such. That said, nuance begets nuance, and scripts likeThe Green Butchersare the truest testament to Mikkelsen’s expertise. The Hollywood machine could learn a thing or two from Denmark.
