Finished this today.
I'll be the first to admit that oftentimes I can be a bit blinded by what I think a show should be and I fail to appreciate what a show is. I sort of let the potential eclipse the final product at the expense of my own viewing experience.
That might explain why I found this series to be somewhat anti-climactic overall. Now, I thought it was fairly intriguing story telling from the beginning, I watched all 6 episodes without it ever feeling like a chore. This is a professional job and at no point was I thinking to myself "this is DUMB" or "that doesn't make SENSE". It was a show that basically ticked all its own self-appointed boxes.
I'm always glad to find a mystery story with a dark touch, investigating unexplained tragedies will always be a fun way to begin a story and this mystery and unravelling is the flesh of the story. I've seen too many police procedural so I want to encourage writers to have independent investigation by people with a personal connection to the tragedy which is so much more emotive.
This chill and downbeat tale has a quiet rhythm as something sinister lurks beneath the surface. The narrative switches very freely between the present day and to both before and after the event. it's very free form but still very followable. The interwoven strands to harmonize and enrich each other.
The issue, I suppose, is not that what we have is that bad, it just feels incomplete in some respects, and too much in others. Paganism informs the imagery of this one which is a very safe approach though highly effective if you do it well. This element of the research however felt to me like a hundred generic teen horrors. The writers have an idea of what pagans look like and what the audience wants to see in them and that's what we got. We have it explained to us very candidly which kills a lot of the mystery element.
That's another problem: rather than be teased with one answer after another leading to yet another question after another, everything just reveals itself far too easily.
But considering it as less of a horror or thriller, maybe it can just be good dark storytelling. Well that is a mixed bag: the storyline with Ida, the sister who goes missing has little to really recommend it besides as evidence to the mystery. I don't think it was intended as profound character development except as a desperate way to flesh out the plot (Marrakesh).
Astrid is a much more interesting character, at least as a child. Viola Martinsen's radiant performance is touching and adorable and she totally steals the show. It's pretty cheesy at times as we go into yet another the-child-sees-more-than-we-can story-types (I've still not forgiven Netflix for the Haunting of Hill House) and it's less than riveting.
There are still some things I don't understand and I'm pretty sure I was meant to understand these points but I don't feel sore about those, I just wasn't paying attention. What I'm mad at is that the mysteriousness just kind of fizzles out and the whole wraps up with amazing neatness.
I will say that there is a definite atmosphere here. These Nordic townscapes, by turns bleak to bureaucratically mundane give an oppressive ethos and the director definitely seems to have been on the ball to give us something to look at. I especially loved seeing hair flow in a golden bath.
So, yeah. Another show that seems interesting but just didn't quite know where to go with itself, falling back on way too many tropes and ultimately showing it knew how to intrigue but no idea how to follow through, whether by reveals or just by keeping us in the dark.
This is the first Nordic TV show I've ever watched more than a couple of episodes of and I wanted to see it do well because how much Nordic media is there? Even in the Nordic territories?
