The Purity of Vengeance

The Purity of Vengeance (Danish: Journal 64) is a 2018 Danish crime thriller directed by Christoffer Boe. It is based on the novel Journal 64 by Jussi Adler-Olsen. It is the fourth installment of the Department Q film series, after The Keeper of Lost Causes (2013), The Absent One (2014), and A Conspiracy of Faith (2016).^[1]

In 1961, teenage girl Nete meets her boyfriend Tage on the beach. They have sex, profess their love for one another, and discuss Nete’s pregnancy. Her father finds them, drags her off, and screams at her for "whoring around" with her cousin. He leaves her in the care of Nurse Gitte Charles, who will accompany her to a home for troubled girls on the island of Sprogø. There she meets the facility’s doctor, Dr. Curt Wad.

In the present, Assad is disappointed in the brief, impersonal reference letter Mørck provided him, in advance of Assad’s transfer to the fraud department. With only one week left with Department Q, Mørck downplays their five-year friendship, saying they are just colleagues, and Assad leaves disgruntled. Meanwhile, Nour visits an OB/GYN clinic, where she receives an abortion. A construction crew breaks through a wall to find a horrific scene: three mummified bodies tied up and seated at a dinner table. After Mørck learns Bak has been assigned the case, he travels to the crime scene with Assad to take over. The three victims, who were all found with ID (one illegible), died of henbane overdoses and had their reproductive organs removed and placed in jars on the table. Mørck and Assad meet with Marcus and discuss their suspicions of the still-missing property owner Gitte Charles. The two victims with readable documents are identified as Nete Hermansen and Philip Nørvig. Philip’s disappearance was closed by Marcus twelve years ago after his wife said he ran off with another woman. The detectives track down Philip’s wife Mie, and give her the news that he has been dead the entire time. After Mørck presses her, Mie says she got an email from Philip saying he was leaving her for another woman; their son tracked the IP to an internet café in Málaga. She also reveals that Philip worked as a defence attorney in a case related to Sprogø.

In 1961, Nete is assigned a roommate, Rita, who initiates her into life at Sprogø. The girls take henbane recreationally and Rita sexually assaults Nete. In the present, Rose identifies Rita as the last of the three victims. Rose also tells Mørck and Assad that Gitte had an address in Málaga and a Spanish bank account that paid the crime scene apartment's rent. The Spanish police try to pick up Gitte, but she has already fled. The detectives put together that the main connection between the victims is Sprogø — Rita and Nete were patients, while Gitte worked there. They suspect Philip represented the facility in court, but are confounded by the lack of records in the police archives.

Mørck, Assad, and Rose drive to meet Brandt, a paranoid man who works as a caretaker for the abandoned facility. He gives them a tour and reveals that many of the cases were rather decided in secret hearings. Mørck and Assad sort through records, before finding a forced sterilisation case where Philip represented Dr. Curt Wad. With Gitte Charles still eluding police, Department Q focuses on the connection between all four: Wad. Mørck and Assad interview Wad. Mørck confronts Wad, who points out the laws back then permitted sterilisation on the "morally defective."

In 1961, Rita realises that Nete is pregnant. Rita says she needs to get out if she wants to keep the baby, and suggests a nearby fisherman who will provide things in exchange for various favours. They sneak out to meet him. However, the event is a set-up: the fisherman begins to rape her and then Dr. Wad and Gitte are ushered in by Rita. Rita betrayed Nete to secure her own release from the island. Wad attempts to rape a restrained Nete, but she bites his ear off. Nete is forcibly sterilised, and shortly after the Danish state decides to close Sprogø.

In the present, Mørck and Assad meet with Brandt, who claims that Wad is still sterilising young women without their knowledge — specifically girls from immigrant backgrounds. He presents videos of young women entering the clinic. Assad recognises Nour. He takes her to a hospital, where an exam reveals Wad sterilised her. Nour is devastated, but refuses to lodge an official complaint, since it would mean telling her parents. Wad leads a meeting of his secret eugenicist society, telling them to close ranks. He sends someone out to kill Brandt and to follow the detectives. Mørck and Assad pick up Philip’s old files from Mie, but the files are destroyed after they are attacked. Rose discovers Brandt’s body, and fights off an assailant. At the crime scene, Assad suspects Mørck is keeping something from him. He angrily leaves, declaring they are no longer a team.

Mørck has figured out that it is not Gitte they are looking for, but Nete, who has taken revenge on the people connected to Wad. He meets an old woman getting off a bus; she pepper sprays him and is able to get away. Nour goes to Wad’s clinic to confront Wad's wife Beate about the sterilisation. Mørck follows Nete onto a ferry, and he returns her heart locket, which was given to her by Tage. They sit down and both drink her tea laced with henbane. Mørck calmly says she killed Philip, Rita, and Gitte, and then stole Gitte’s identity. He also figures out that the empty place setting was meant for Wad. Nete tells him she and Tage got back together for a bit after she was released from Sprogø, but she wasn’t the same person anymore and he wanted children, so she left him. Consumed by hatred, she started planning the murders after her case against Wad was rejected. However, before she could kill Wad, she got a letter from Tage, who wanted to reunite. She sealed up the room and let go, living happily for twelve years until Tage's death. Mørck lets Nete get away, as she is here to scatter Tage’s ashes in the Øresund.

Mørck gets a call from Rose requesting help at the clinic; Assad believes Nour is trapped there. An officer arrives, but he is also a member of the secret eugenicist cult. Assad finds Nour unconscious with Wad, and the officer then shoots Assad. Wad plans to stage the crime scene as if Assad attacked him and was killed in self-defense. As this plan gets into motion, a still-intoxicated Mørck arrives, who realises that the officer was the one he shot during the motorbike attack. They struggle, and Mørck pushes him off a balcony. Nour wakes up enough to hit Wad on the head, and Mørck calls for help.

Assad is hospitalised. Mørck stays by his bedside and admits what their partnership means to him. He asks him to come back to Department Q, and Assad tearfully accepts. On the TV, Marcus announces that a eugenicist group secretly operated for years to sterilise socially disadvantaged women. Wad and his wife are arrested, and Nour speaks out about her experience.

• Nikolaj Lie Kaas as Carl Mørck
• Fares Fares as Assad

• The Purity of Vengeance at IMDb