In 2019, the bodies of 39 Vietnamese people were discovered dead in the back of a refrigerator trailer in Grays, Essex. The deceased – 31 men and 8 women – were victims of human trafficking and had been trapped inside the vehicle. They would have died the most hideous of deaths.
If you want to avoid all spoilers, stop reading this article now.
This new Swedish drama from Walter Presents will resonate with anyone who followed the story of those poor innocent people in Essex.
Erwin Linnas (Peter Viitanen) is a truck driver who works for Rainer Lunt (Ville Virtanen), the owner of a small haulage company in rural Sweden. But Lunt has a more lucrative sideline than simple road haulage – people smuggling.
Lunt asks Erwin (who is complicit) to drive down to Denmark to collect some illegal immigrants and bring them to Sweden in the back of his tanker. Edwin – because of the poor health of his father – initially refuses, but in the end is convinced to do the job.
He collects the people, and initially all is good. They hide in the tanker, and one of the hatches is wedged open slightly to allow air to circulate. They are all told to keep quiet – so they don’t bring attention to themselves – and Erwin begins the long journey back to Sweden.
But soon things start to unravel for the unfortunate trucker. It’s a particularly hot day in Scandinavia, so the poor people in the tanker are roasting like beans in a giant tin can. Even with the hatch open, conditions are atrocious.
However, Erwin is a good man at heart. He takes pity on them, offers them water, and allows them to take a toilet break. And when he discovers that one of the women is pregnant, and the baby is running a fever, he allows them to sit in his cab hidden behind a curtain.
Once in Sweden, the police stop Erwin at a routine checkpoint. They spot that the hatch is open and instruct him to close it. He does as he is instructed and continues on his way.
It is at this point that things get somewhat ridiculous. A phone call from his soon-to-be ex-wife distracts Erwin so much that he forgets that he’s locked the hatch. And at no point for the duration of the journey does he remember to open it – and nor does he (or the woman in the cab with him) appear to hear their frantic banging as the air runs out. When he finally arrives at his destination and climbs the ladder to check on the hatch, the penny finally drops.
This is an interesting take on the tragic issue of people smuggling. Erwin is a likable chap – a family man. He’s not a cold-blooded murderer. He wants his illegal passengers to get the opportunity to start a life in Sweden. But his forgetfulness has terrible consequences that leads him down a path of destruction.
If you can tolerate the trauma of watching people dying in an airless metal coffin – and it is pretty harrowing stuff – then this is a well-acted and thought-provoking drama.
Walter Presents: ‘The Lost’ is available as a full boxset via C4 Streaming now.
