Sweden
Kieron Tyler
Last May, Malmö trio Death and Vanilla issued the To Where the Wild Things are album and it seemed they had arrived as a fully formed post-Broadcast proposition, harmoniously fusing vintage influences like the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Italian giallo soundtracks and The United States of America. With its cover imagery evoking the British Ghostbox label, To Where the Wild Things are could have been dismissed as havng thumbed a ride on a musical excursion begun by others. But the album was so assured and stuffed with such dreamy melodies it transcended the inspirations. Death and Vanilla were Read more ...
Mark Sanderson
Any drama in which a crazed crone stares silently at an urn containing the ashes of her murdered husband is not afraid of raising Shakespeare’s ghost. It doesn’t matter that Gunnar was a philanderer who foolishly went sailing with his lover’s husband – his widow still grieves for him even though he died at the end of the last century. Having scattered his ashes in the sea, Mildred the Mad (Johanna Ringbom) immediately ties herself to an anchor and goes overboard. Her companion in the boat, Jonna, who as a child witnessed her father kill Gunnar, once again does nothing.Ten weeks ago Thicker Read more ...
Mark Sanderson
Diversity has replaced perversity as a staple of modern drama. Whereas once upon a time an unenlightened viewer might cry – on seeing two men kiss – that they were going to leave the country before homosexuality became compulsory, a scene of mixed-race rutting can still ruffle a dodo’s feathers today. Monday’s episode of Marcella, for example, with Nicholas Pinnock’s bare buttocks pumping away on top of Anna Friel, ploughed a new furrow on peak-time ITV.The fifth episode of Blue Eyes opens with an idyllic scene in which a white mother, Asian father and two cute kids enjoy a sunlit breakfast. Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Can't get enough Scandi Noir? Then why not make your own? With the aid of Hans Rosenfeldt, creator of The Bridge and installed here as screenwriter, ITV has.Take one disturbed anti-heroine suffering from hallucinations and a disintegrating marriage, exhume a serial killer from the past who has apparently resumed his grisly activities, add a murky property development company happy to ride roughshod over planning regulations in pursuit of obscene profits, and season with gruesomely murdered corpses with plastic bags tied over their heads. Throw in a few shots of Blackfriars bridge and make a Read more ...
Saskia Baron
Perhaps if you are in a sufficiently patient state, this slowburn of a Swedish art house film will suit your mood, but if fast cutting and rapid crossfire dialogue is your thing, it may be best to steer clear of The Here After. The debut feature of writer-director Magnus van Horn has done well at overseas film festivals, but may be a harder sell as a night out in a UK cinema on a chilly March evening. We first meet John (played by heart-throb pop star Ulrik Munther) as he’s packing up to leave the young offenders’ detention centre where he’s been for an undisclosed time, for an Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Bombus kick ass. Not “arse” – my preferred anglicised spelling – but “ass”, because this, their third album, is Rainbow Bar & Grill-friendly, hair-flayling, leather-clad riffology. They come from Sweden, not LA, but, legs planted apart, they play head-bangin’ rock’n’roll with a truly enjoyable heft. Their music begs the listener to whack up the volume, run around the room roaring, and jump off the sofa windmilling air guitar. It’s a blast. The Gothenberg foursome fall within the framework of metal but don’t have truck with the ear-frazzling shredding guitars of death metal, nor do they Read more ...
Steve O'Rourke
The ties that bind, the mystery of the human condition and the emotional connections that keep us trussed to our nearest and dearest. Visualise love and what do you see? In the eyes of the Unravel development team it’s a little red thread, the same thread that lies at the heart of this endearing puzzle platform game.Yarny is the pint-sized, wool-based protagonist, an impish figure derived entirely from a single thread of the soft stuff. He’s big on mending broken bonds and repairing the love that can fray over time, and not so hot on multi-hit combos and finishing moves. But when your world Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Is language a barrier to international recognition? Is English necessary to make waves worldwide? Musicians from the African continent and South America regularly perform in their native tongue beyond the borders of their home countries. But often they are – rightly or wrongly – marketed or pigeon-holed as world music, a branding which allows for eschewing the Anglophone. The always problematic label of world music can be and is debated endlessly, but one thing is certain: for Scandinavia, most internationally successful music is delivered in English.Of course, after setting quirky micro- Read more ...
David Nice
In 1981 a 20-year-old Swedish trumpeter on national service turned up in the town – city, by Swedish reckoning – of Örebro as soloist in Bach’s Second Brandenburg Concerto. The ensemble, then a mix of amateurs and professionals, some of them from the local military academy, is now the much-recorded and award-winning Swedish Chamber Orchestra; the trumpeter, Håkan Hardenberger, is probably the most famous in the world, and certainly the most adventurous – he still fights for contemporary composers to take first place in musical creation. Earlier this month the SCO and Hardenberger Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Was it just my bewilderment, or were there even more criss-crossing narratives than usual in this third series of The Bridge? As in, unusually expanded levels of human traffic, in various forms of distress, flowing under said structure.The Bridge, along with other Nordic noir that we’ve come to love, has long adopted the position that the best way to get from a to d is via x, y and z. It’s gripping in its ability to interconnect stories, but occasionally everyting gets a bit much. Somewhere early in episode nine we had Saga (whom we should really call Séga?) and new partner Hendrik (much more Read more ...
David Kettle
First-time writer/director Sanna Lenken’s touching anorexia drama is such a heartfelt, fragile thing that it feels churlish to criticise it. Herself a former eating-disorder sufferer, Lenken brings a real warmth and sincerity to her portrait of an ordinary Swedish family rapidly unravelling when their elder daughter seems unable to overcome the horrible physical effects of her aching self-doubt.Precocious tweenager Stella (a magnificent Rebecka Josephson) idolises her older sister Katya (played by former child star Amy Deasismont), dreaming of emulating her figure-skating successes, and Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The Saga saga has come round for a third turn of the wheel. Much water has flowed under The Bridge since series two. Without wishing to provoke a visit from the spoiler Stasi, it is safe to reveal that Martin is no longer in the picture. He is currently enjoying Her Danish Majesty’s hospitality, and over the water in Malmö Saga is partnerless. Indeed in the Copenhagen police force, her reputation is no longer just as an oddball with no sense of humour, communication skills or empathy. She’s the one who ratted on her closest colleague.So series three is all about palling Saga Norén (Sofia Read more ...