Tip of the Ekberg

Anita Ekberg

Out On Blue Six : ABBA

Watched the BBC documentary Agnetha: ABBA and After tonight, which led me to thinking about his oft overlooked ABBA track, one of my favourites

I make no apologies for liking ABBA, always have and always will. I know some call them a guilty pleasure, but they're great songwriters and musicians - what's to feel guilty about?

Anyway, the documentary was very good and it was great to have so much of the history and story of the group being laid out as well as contributions from all the key players, except Anni-Frid alas, although Bjorn now looks like Alan Rickman in Die Hard!

I especially liked how the documentary found time to pay tribute to Agnetha's magnificent bum!

End Transmission

Girls With Guns

Swedish lovely and star of Italian exploitation Janet Agren

Here she is looking less deadly, but just as hot

Fancy a kickabout? ;)

The Martin Beck Killings

Finally, the BBC have answered my prayers and adapted Maj Swojall and Per Wahloo's Martin Beck series.

Well, sort of.

You see their adaptation will be on radio only. Radio 4 to be precise (as part of their 'Foreign Bodies' season). Whilst I'd have loved to see a TV adaptation, I guess radio will have to do for now. Hell, at least it's something!

Martin Beck Radio 4 Link

The adaptations start 27th October. But before that every day next week there'll be a 15 minute documentary looking at various foreign detectives, including Beck.

The casting of the adaptations is very good too I must say. As a long term fan of the novels I've often had daydreams of a wishlist of actors to play the parts here in the UK and on the whole I'm impressed and excited about who has been cast. Steven Macintosh plays Beck and is a very capable actor (though in the flesh I imagine Beck to be a bit thicker and wearier looking. A Brendan Gleeson maybe?) Neil Pearson, who I've long since admired since his role in the 90s police series Between The Lines plays Lennart Kollberg, which I think is perfect as Kollberg is meant to be a bit chubby yet very athletic and deep. Only Eddie Marsan could have been a better choice in my opinion, and even he has a height issue being too small. Adrian Scarborough, another great and versatile actor plays the walking database Frederik Melander which is just brilliant casting, whilst Russell Boulter (The Bill, Casualty) plays the slightly inept and anxious Einar Ronn. Lastly, my favourite of the team, Sweden's very own Gene Hunt, Gunvald Larsson will be played by Ralph Ineson. Larsson is a very difficult role to pin down I imagine as he has to be funny and tough. He's utterly bombastic and a true Viking. I think Ineson, famed for blunt Northern roles (he was Chris Finch in The Office) is a very good choice.

So, I'm all set for October 27th!

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Mark 2)

So I've finally got round to watching this.

But that suggests I haven't seen it before doesn't it? 

And that's not strictly true.

Because you see I've watched the original Swedish version, and its two sequels, already. I adored them and frankly, when I heard that Hollydud had decided to remake them my initial feeling was 'why?' 
It felt like a pointless exercise, much like BBC1 installing Kenneth Branagh as Wallander for a series of so so adaptations after BBC4 have screened all the brilliant Swedish original ones. 
I'm reminded of an old adage which I'll paraphrase to suit the locale here - why go out for hamburger when you can have prime Swedish meatballs at home?
Seriously, is the reason for remakes just so a wider audience - and audience too lazy to read subtitles - could watch? 
Is that enough of a reason to spunk millions upon millions of dollars at feet upon feet of celluloid?? 
The tragic thing is, the more anglo-remakes that get made the lesser opportunities there are for foreign language movies to ever break out of 'the art house' and take their place in the mainstream multiplexes where they deserve to be. They're being squeezed out, and all for carbon copies to pander to the masses, dulling expectations and palettes.

Phew, rant over.

Anyway, I have watched this tonight and what do I think? Well, if it came first, if there was no Swedish language version, I'd really love it. It's well directed by David Fincher, it looks beautiful, it has a great vibe faithful to the novel and the cast is uniformly brilliant (taking the usual Hollywood staple of chucking a load of English actors at the screen because the characters they are playing are foreign ie 'not American' and having them adopt a slightly stilted accent...except for Daniel Craig however who basically just speaks as he always does) And so to our leading man, I do feel Craig is a little distracting; he's never going to suffer typecasting like Connery, Moore, Dalton or Brosnan etc, because his acting chops are far more considerable, but it's hard to shake Bond away from his role here, especially with the Maurice Binder on MDMA and Acid style opening titles which just scream what Bond should be now. Craig's just too neat, too handsome and looks too capable and canny to play the slightly at sea, weary Blomkvist with the typically Nordic slings and arrows befalling him at every turn.  

Rooney Mara is good but  she simplycannot touch the brilliance of Noomi Rapace who simply is Lisbeth. Her interpretation seems like a brilliant impression rather than a proper performance. The shadow of Rapace looms all too large.

In conclusion, this is a film that succeeds exactly where it is supposed to. It is made for people who wouldn't think of sitting down watching the original, therefore for such people this will be a brilliant film. For me, it's a good film and to be honest, that's more than I was expecting.

Out On Blue Six : First Aid Kit

Folky Swedish duo. J'adore.

Can't believe I've not shared any of theirs on here as yet?? Been enthusing about them for aeons. 

End Transmission

Art For Art's Sake : My Drawings and Painting

After Columbo yesterday, I thought I'd share another drawing of a TV detective, Kurt Wallander as portrayed by Kenneth Branagh, in charcoal.

Branagh's 3rd series as Wallander came to a close on BBC1 at the weekend, and I'm sad to say it was rather weak. The gorgeous cinematography, bold identity and strong adaptations of Henning Mankell's books that made the first series such a delight have faded, as film upon film, series upon series has gotten progressively dull. The angst of the character, once so relevant in some key books, have become the sole characteristic of Branagh's depiction and it's totally erroneous. Thankfully, BBC4 have decided to buy more of the original Wallander from Sweden depicted by Rolf Lassgard and will commence airing on Saturday night. The real deal is clearly the best option to take. 

Sebastian Bergman

He's got a brilliant mind, but he's overweight, past it and going to seed both personally and professionally.

He's an unorthodox maverick whose factory settings are lugubrious and hostile. He's downright rude and offensive and he doesn't give a shit what you think, unless you're a woman - in which case his slab like face will split in half to a leering twinkly grin and he'll at least look as if he's listening whilst trying to get into your knickers, and to hell with his position of trust and responsibility.

If we are to judge a man by his actions he ought to be completely unlikeable, but he's got personal demons which we come to understand. Demons that makes us realise why he is like he is and ultimately we will empathise with him.

Oh, and he's a criminal profiler with an unhappy alliance with the police who need him as much as he needs them, though neither side would care to admit it.

But this isn't Fitz from Cracker.

This is Sebastian Bergman, from Sweden - the latest in BBC4's successful smash and grab raids on the Scandinavian TV networks for our Saturday viewing pleasure these past two weekends.

The titular character is played by Swedish acting legend Rolf Lassgard, a flaxen haired Viking of a man, who had previously played unorthodox and non PC policeman Gunvald Larsson in the adaptations of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo's Martin Beck novels and perhaps more famously, Henning Mankell's detective hero Wallander, in a series of Swedish films from 1994 to 2007. It was a role that brought him much positive attention and great acclaim in his homeland, though less so here; as this blog has previously reported, in the light of the Nordic Noir craze, some 'Emperor's New Clothes' critics and viewers sniffed disdainfully at the broadcast of three of his Wallander films on BBC4 in 2010 claiming he 'wasn't as good as Krister Henriksson, the original'. A foolish schoolboy error of an opinion that failed to realise that a) it was Lassgard's enormous shoes Henriksson had to fill as his successor, Lassgard being the first actor to play the role and b) Lassgard gave a very faithful rendition of Mankell's literary figure, which they'd know if they deigned to read one of the books.

One imagines that, for the Swedes, seeing Lassgard take on another crime drama must be like us seeing John Thaw move from The Sweeney to Inspector Morse and Kavanagh QC.  As such he brings a baggage to the part, the weight of previous similar roles as well as a distinctive star quality that exudes on the screen. There's a charisma to his performance, often forming an odd partnership to the lumbering occasionally introspective and emotionally retarded traits his character has, but which automatically helps the audience to get on side. It's a neat trick given that, as I've previously said, on the face of it Bergman isn't that likeable.

But beneath the surface, Bergman is a troubled, tortured soul and mid way through the first film, he reveals (to a woman involved in the case who moments earlier he was trying to bed no less) that he lost both his wife and his daughter in the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, that horrible tragedy that deeply affected Sweden, having lost over 500 of its countrymen and women (and brought about a deep depression and, ultimately at just 33, the suicide of Swedish actress Johanna Sallstrom, who played Linda Wallander in the Krister Henriksson series) Bergman bares his soul, explaining that he had hold of his young infant daughter's hand at the time but lost her; it explains the neat and satisfying visual motif that dogs each film, that of the camera capturing Bergman unconsciously clenching and unclenching his hand. 

The first film has a rather pedestrian mystery at its core, but it's nonetheless very enjoyable for it, preferring instead to focus on characterisation and allowing the audience to get to know and appreciate the dynamics. The listless, frustrated Bergman arrives back home to attend to his recently passed mother's house and belongings. He swiftly finds himself in the middle of a murder, being the neighbour of someone involved in the case. Seeing an opportunity for structure and a chance to prove himself again - if as much to himself as anyone else - he begs the local police to allow him to work in the investigation. It appears he's a black sheep with a past, having worked with the local police previously some ten years earlier, but having had to leave under a cloud after a disastrous personal relationship with a senior female detective who is still in the squad. Ultimately, they admit they need him and bring him on board. But it seems Bergman has his own investigation too, tracing an address of someone who had written to his late mother. At the end of the film, and the successful conclusion of the crime, Bergman finds out that  the letter writer was an old flame who had his baby some thirty years early and that that baby has now grown up to be a junior detective who he had just been working with.

The second film continues Bergman's personal angst, and then some. He's been warned off revealing his true identity to his daughter/colleague as she believes her mother's husband to be her real father, and he's out of work again. He attends a group counselling session at the behest of his therapist only to bed a fellow service user immediately after it. Three days later and his one night stand winds up dead, another victim in a serial killer who seems to be imitating a killer Bergman caught in the 90s. Brought into the investigation and forced to confront his old nemesis in prison, Bergman realises that not only is there a copycat, but that each victim is a former one night stand or girlfriend of his. Clearly, this is personal. And worse, they know about Bergman's daughter...

The second is also more satisfying, preferring to focus on the crimes themselves and allowing Bergman the chance to prove some of his profiling skills (albeit not very in depth) Nevertheless it doesn't provide us with anything we haven't seen before - again - this time borrowing heavily from Silence Of The Lambs (including the fear of the dark motif) It has a suitably creepy imprisoned serial killer who looks not unlike Harold Shipman though, which gives it a real unsettling air. Ultimately and perhaps unsurprisingly, Bergman is thrown into a horrific situation where he has to save the daughter he knows he has in order to absolve himself of the guilt he had for being unable to save his other daughter years earlier. 

All in all, unlike The Killing, Borgen or The Bridge, Sebastian Bergman gives us nothing new, being formulaic and in holding similarities to other greater works in the genre it's naturally not as vital, original or as groundbreaking as its Danish and Danish/Swedish predecessors. But it's still enjoyable TV and passes away 90 minutes perfectly on a Saturday evening for those in need of their Nordic fix. Lassgard gives a solid performance and the direction, editing and cinematography often put me in mind of Oliver Stone's work on films like JFK and Nixon, with its flashbacks and flashforwards drifting hazily across the screen to progress the narrative. I'm not entirely sure what the future holds for Sebastian Bergman, but I hope that if Sweden continues to make them, BBC4 continues to purchase them.

The Three Faces Of Wallander

The BBC4 broadcast of Sebastian Bergman, another Swedish thriller export featuring Rolf Lassgard, at the weekend set me thinking of Lassgard's previous and most famous role; that of Henning Mankell's literary detective Kurt Wallander.

I've been a huge fan of Scandinavian crime novels for many years now. Once upon a time I had to order in the books or search in quiet overlooked corners of Waterstones etc for Mankell, Sjowall and Wahloo, Lackberg and Nesbo. Now, thanks to the boom from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series, BBC4's showing of Wallander and The Killing and the BBC's own version of the former, a huge fanbase has developed and those quiet little corners of mine have disappeared. I, and many many others, are like children in a sweet shop, spoiled for choice - and it's often overwhelming.

But typically, we in the UK got it a bit arse about face when it came to Wallander. We got our own version first, followed by the Krister Henriksson series from Sweden and lastly, Lassgard. So let's take a look at them.

The original: Rolf Lassgard

Lassgard was previously famous for playing gruff detective Larsson in adaptations of Sjowall and Wahloo's Martin Beck series before taking on the mantle of Wallander in 1994, a role he continued to play up until 2007 which makes him not just the first, but the longest running. 

Hilariously, several 'Emperor's New Clothes' fans over here in the UK had a little sulk and a gripe when BBC4 broadcast three of his Wallander films last year - complaining that he was wrong for the role and how they preferred the original, Krister Henriksson; not realising that just because they saw Henriksson first doesn't make him the original! Oh dear. 

For me, Lassgard is the perfect Wallander for his films. The Wallander of the novels is problematic, reckless, overweight and rather grumpy. These are all qualities Lassgard imbued and rightly so, given his films were pure adaptations of Mankell's source material. Of course, he's completely different to Henriksson...

The international success: Krister Henriksson

In a remarkable case of shooting yourself in the foot, BBC4 broadcast two Swedish Wallander films; 'Before The Frost' and 'Mastermind' over one weekend when the first series of the UK version with Kenneth Branagh aired. Whilst Branagh's interpretation is in no way a failure (more on this later) the general consensus was that people preferred the Swedish originals and so, realising they were onto something, BBC4 swiftly bought both of Krister Henriksson's series sparking the huge interest in all things Scandinavian we know now.

Henriksson's Wallander is completely different to Lassgard's and, to that extent, rather different to the Wallander in the books. The series takes up where Mankell's (at the time) final novel, 'Before The Frost' left off, placing Kurt's daughter Linda in the police force (played beautifully by Johanna Sallstrom who tragically committed suicide in 2007, necessitating a change of direction for the second series that made the on screen woes of Kurt all the greater, and  though his daughter's fate was never expressly stated in the episodes that followed, it was strongly implied she had died like the splendid actress who had portrayed her) It's true to say that the Wallander we see between 2006 to 2009 is older, more careworn and more sensible. He's a sombre person, the tragedies he's seen over his forty years as a policeman having taken their toll. He's also now very senior and as such the previous recklessness and seeming perpetual desire to hit the self destruct button we saw from Lassgard and in the novels is now nowhere to be seen. He's leaner, healthier, more cautious and wiser.

Henriksson remains the definitive Wallander in the UK and he's a remarkable actor.

The UK pretender: Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Branagh was lured to television in 2008 to play the Swedish detective. The series of three 90 minute films were hugely influential, changing the way the BBC approached and made crime series. It's a legacy that is bigger than the show itself; Sherlock for example, was originally conceived as a set of six hour long episodes, but after Wallander, the notion of event TV occurred and the BBC hastily requested the Sherlock team to follow suit and produce three 90 minute films instead. However, whilst Sherlock became a huge and unexpected runaway hit with lengthy pauses between series 1 and series two (necessitated by the team's other work on it's stablemate Doctor Who) having the audience begging for more, Wallander hasn't had the same impact. The first series was a brilliant, well crafted and well designed and attractive piece of TV that, because of Branagh's other projects (such as directing Thor) meant it did not return for a second series of three films until 2010...but not to the same hungry audiences that would meet Sherlock on it's second run. By this point, BBC4, sating the appetite for more, had the nation hooked on the Henriksson series and, unfortunately, Branagh was considered the poor relation. Again, there was a touch of 'Emperor's New Clothes' in sniffy criticism that pointed out Branagh's interpretation was too emotive and the whole affair felt too forced. These people failed to consider that Branagh was adapting the novels and so was presenting a younger Wallander than the more weary and wiser Henriksson, or that in being a UK production overseas they had to approach the foreign aspect full on, to show how different this was than the dour UK of A Touch Of Frost or the dreaming spires of Inspector Morse. If anything the series visual style and sense of the European is the one thing that truly makes it stand out, and makes it a joy to watch, so it's a deep shame that that was levelled as a criticism. If there is one criticism I personally have towards Branagh's series, it's the cardinal sin of adapting the books out of order which meant a lot of the character's back stories and the history in the story had to be rewritten and reinvented. 


A third and final series will be broadcast next year, but already it feels like what was once so promising, may have run out of steam; hoist by its own petard. 

Reaching The End Of The Bridge

The Bridge the excellent Swedish/Danish co-production ended it's 5 week run of double bill episodes each Saturday night yesterday.

And I'm missing it already :(

I became completely besotted with Sofia Helin who plays detective Saga Noren, a brilliant investigator seemingly with autism or at the very least with a child like outlook, a no nonsense or time for social niceties approach to life. She makes Cumberbatch's Sherlock look positively house trained!

Likewise Kim Bodnia impressed as her Danish counterpart Martin Rohnde, with his Stacey Keach style smile and bear like carefree manner. 

I'm so glad to hear a second season is due to be filmed this autumn....I'm trying not to think how long it will take to come to these shores though. In the mean time I hope the Yanks keep their hands off this one; a remake set on the Canadian/American border? No thanks!

The beautiful theme tune....

Saturday

It's Saturday. And Saturday is all about this

BBC4's new Swedish/Danish export The Bridge. 2 episodes in and I'm completely, utterly hooked. A worthy successor to Wallander, The Killing and Borgen

The Man On The Roof

The Man On The Roof, or Mannen pa taket to give it its native Swedish title, is a 1976 film directed by Bo Widerberg. It is based on the novel The Abominable Man from the Martin Beck series of Swedish detective thrillers by husband and wife writing duo Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Together they wrote ten novels in all spanning ten years from the mid 60s to the mid 70s, collectively known as 'The Story Of A Crime' The novels have been adapted and used as inspiration many times for the screen up to and including a recent Swedish TV hit of some years standing, and a US adaptation of their novel The Laughing Policeman from 1973 which relocated the action to San Francisco and starred Walter Matthau. However it is this adaptation that is still to this day the second most successful Swedish film ever and a winner of two Guldbagge Awards (Best Film, Best Actor)


The plot is, at first glance, a simple one; a policeman, recuperating in hospital is disturbed by an unseen intruder and brutally and repeatedly stabbed to death by a bayonet (pigs blood was used for the effect as Widerberg deemed the fake blood insufficient)  Martin Beck, a weary and unhappily married family man investigates alongside his colleague the hapless Einar Ronn. During the proceedings they discover the murdered policeman was known for brutal and sadistic methods, but the corrupt and lazy station house he operated from turned a blind eye. They discover the murderer killed for revenge, in memory of his wife, a diabetic who fell into a coma in the street and was picked up by his the policeman as a drunk, ignored and died in her cell. 


This type of story is indicative of Sjowall and Wahloo's writing; as Marxists they didn't just concern themselves with the crimes viewed by the law and society, but the crimes made in society from government and poor management from those we are meant to look up to.


By this time however, the murderer has positioned himself on a rooftop in the city of Stockholm, Charles Whitman style, and is taking pot shots with his automatic rifle at the citizens, and anyone official who tries to stop him, down below. One memorable scene even sees him shoot down a police helicopter, sending it crashing into the tube way entrance on the street below.


A tight, claustrophobic film, The Man On The Roof alternates between a standard police procedural, a social critique and an action movie. Indeed, Widerberg was inspired to make it from viewing The French Connection, and this movie has much in common in terms of realism and the dangerous shoot out and chase that occurs in that film's middle section. 


It's easy to see what turned around 750,000 Swedish citizens on to this movie upon it's release, for one they were already fans of the successful books and secondly, they were probably invigorated to see something that could take on Hollywood. It probably made a change from the usual Bergman movies!


As a reader and fan of the books myself, this film is rather pleasing. There are some discrepancies; of course the characters never quite match up to those in your head, but the film's Beck played by Carl-Gustaf Lindstet (a comic actor cast against type as the serious film lead after Widerberg saw him on live TV with a solemn expression, unaware the camera was observing him!) is a little too old, whilst Sven Wollter's Kolberg is too much the natural capable action man rather than the fat policeman of the book.
My own favourite character of the series, the Gene Hunt like Gunvald Larsson is here played by Thomas Hellberg. He scores on making his character brusque and off hand and something of a dapper dresser, but he's too short for the role.
Folke Hjort's Mellander is only briefly seen and rather rotund, whilst Haken Serner makes a convincing Ronn, and just as well for it was he who bagged the Best Actor award.




It's rarely seen on these shores, but it can be picked up, if you look in the right places (make sure subtitles in English are included, unless you're blessed enough to speak Swedish) It is worth a watch, and takes it's rightful place among fellow superb 70s policiers that our American cousins churned out at the time.
And without it, or Sjowall and Wahloo, there'd be no Wallander, no Forbrydelsen aka The Killing, no Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and no Harry Hole thrillers by Jo  Nesbo.

Out On Blue Six : Anna Ternheim and Emily Barker

Two songs with a specific link tonight/this morning (it's midnight as I type!) Both feature as themes to the TV series of Wallander based on the brilliant books by Henning Mankell.

The first 'Quiet Night' by Anna Ternheim served as the theme to the Swedish TV series starring Krister Henriksson, whereas the second, 'Nostalgia' by Australian singer songwriter Emily Barker is the theme to the BBC version with Kenneth Branagh

I love both these songs, they're so pleasingly melancholic

The Out On Blue Six Programme hopes that the British Space Empire has enjoyed these sonic installations of sound and character.

Normal service to be resumed in T Minus 5 and counting.

End Transmission.