Touches You

Better Late Then Never

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Gripping, unpredictable, charismatic, dark, broody this is perfection in Nordic Noir realised for the screen. The narrative drive is entirely from the police perspective, all women are treated badly, no one helps the investigation, it is visceral on every level of of its unflinching belief that below calm order all is corrupt all is rotten in the state of Denmark.......boom boom.

I love a good crime drama, and this is a VERY good crime drama. I've seen Series 1 and 2, and am unsure how Series 3 is or how it ends, but I've loved what I've seen so far. This show has shocked me many times, it broke my heart at the end of Series 1 and even more so at the end of Series 2. The acting is good, the green tint this show has gives it a fairly gritty and noir vibe, also going well with the mood of the show which is often dark and depressing. This show is hard-hitting, intelligent, and knows how to make you laugh, feel tense and uncomfortable, or make you cry your eyes out. That's good storytelling.

I write this as a massive fan of 'Breaking Bad' and 'Peaky Blinders' - two epics of different genres which I thought would never be bettered.Belatedly I came upon 'The Bridge' (Bron/Broen), and I have found the best drama series I have ever watched. My wife and I have just belatedly 'binged' on season 4 over two long nights!You can read elsewhere of Sofie Helin's unbelievably brilliant portrayal of Saga Noren. I would like to give massive credit to the entire leading cast, all exceptionally good.No spoilers here, but yes - it's a police drama, but SO much more. It's a dazzling epic woven around two countries, two cultures, men and women as lovers, parents, sons and daughters, siblings. There are stories of redemption, stories of hope and despair - ultimately it's the humanity of its main characters (amid plenty of gruesomeness and extremely confronting crime that will make you squirm), their damaging pasts, their flawed presents, the fact that they all have families too (excellent supporting casts) such that you wholly BELIEVE in them. The scripting, camera work, music, story lines - every darned aspect of 'The Bridge' are unimpeachable, brilliant, and I dare say unbeatable.Just watch it. That is all :)

Believing the hype that this Swedish TV series would be as interesting as the recent Danish ones (see my reviews of THE KILLING and BORGEN), I ordered the DVD of Season One (10 episodes). I need not have bothered. I forced myself to sit through three episodes, hoping for improvement, but it only got worse, much worse. The main thing wrong is that the Swedish woman detective who is the lead in this series is played by a woman who cannot act. Sofia Helin certainly gets my award for The Most Irritating Actress in the World, and that says something! She is enough to make me turn off any DVD or boycott any cinema. She has no business being an actress, and should retire in disgrace. There may be some who think she is 'sexy' (which seems to be the only thing that matters these days, as talent is so much less valued), but I have rarely seen a less 'sexy' woman either. Even more bizarre, starting from this rock bottom of non- entity and non-talent, she is then asked to play a role of a woman detective who is very clever but suffers from some form of autism or Aspergers Syndrome. This compounds disaster by utter folly. To say that it is impossible to feel even the slightest twinge of sympathy for Helin's character, with the improbable name of 'Saga' (and this series certainly is a saga of producers' incompetence), would be to understate the case. Helin is enough to make you want to rise from your chair and strangle the television set. Not that that would do any good, because she would still be out there, threatening to bore and irritate everyone to death, though torturing them first by means of ten episodes. The Danish detective, played by Kim Bodnia, is very good and also sympathetic. But he is wasting his time, and so is everyone who watches this travesty. The directing is OK, and it is the producers who must be blamed for everything that has gone wrong here. As has become the fashion these days nearly everywhere, we are treated to endless shots of the most gruesome and ugly scenes. We get to look again and again at people sliced in half, with the camera lovingly dwelling on the states of the severed entrails, and a discussion of the meat-saw which was used to bisect the women. As usual, there is a psychopath at work, though I am inclined to believe he is not only a character in the series, but probably a producer as well. I am sure this series will be very popular viewing in witches' covens, pathology departments, and mental hospital wards for the incurably insane.