“Everything
goes back to the beginning."
- From
Hollow Talk by Choir of the Young Believers (plus the theme tune to
'The Bridge')
Into the Dark Place
Nordic
Noir, it seems, has now become an international marketing term. Perhaps strange
when you consider it never seems to have been intended as any kind of
export. Which kind of raises the question, what is it and how did it
become so popular abroad? Okay, that's two questions. So we may as
well add a third – how does the most recent entry, the second
series of 'The Bridge' contribute?
The
aficionado may want to know we're drawing from a narrow sample pool
here, specifically the original 2009 film of 'Girl With The
Dragon Tattoo', the Swedish TV series 'Wallander'
starring Krister
Henriksson
(2005/13) and the Danish series 'The Killing'
(2007/12). (Yes, this ignores a whole lot of stuff, including source
novels and two whole other versions of 'Wallander'.
Absent for the following respective reasons - I haven't read them and
I don't like them so much. We don't just throw this show together,
you know.)
In a brief comment the 2011 American remake of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo', I commented on Nordic Noir “reflecting
the current crisis of social democracy in the Scandinavian
countries.” Which in hindsight would seem a better description of
capital-P political drama 'Borgen' (Denmark,
2010/13), and its more roundly positive view of social democracy's
survival prospects. It's essentially about social democracy facing
fresh challenges on a weekly basis, nested inside a meta-story of it
rebranding itself with the growth of the New Democratic Party. It's
not a story with a happy ending, in fact it is very keen to present
politics as something without an ending, something
perpetual. But its outlook is broadly positive. Which rather
conflicts with something else I said - “a flower not wilted but
poisoned at the roots.” Its this second phrase which now feels much
closer to Nordic Noir.
If
all the above examples are crime stories, Nordic Noir is less
concerned with murder than with forensics. (It can have quite a
love/hate relationship with action scenes, not knowing whether to
dramatise or underplay them.) The singular title to 'The
Killing', that's important. A single event, a murder or a
disappearance, comes to act as a loose thread. Tug at it long enough
and the whole cloak comes to be unravelled. Even when not based in
novels, Nordic Noir tends to use novel-length plot lines, slowly
uncovering a truth from beneath decades of suppression. (The
exception being the standalone 'Wallander'
stories, but then I've always seen that as something of a weakness of
theirs.)
'The
Girl With the Dragon Tattoo', for example, focuses on the
wealthy Venger family dynasty. Ostensibly benevolent and patriarchal,
a pillar of the community, they are slowly stripped back, revealing a
trailing tangle of crimes including collaboration with the Nazi
occupiers. (As potent a subject in Scandinavia as in France.) And
with them is stripped the whole social model Scandinavia was supposed
to uphold.
Hence
Nordic Noir's patented setting in the 'dark place'. The cellar or the
woods, the hidden place, the edge. Trailers for that most recent
series of 'The Bridge' involved Swedish detective
Saga indomitably shining her torch into the latest of those dark
places (above).
Yet
the social democratic model is given another face in Nordic Noir. The
'troubled' detective has of course become a genre trope, as seen in
McNulty from 'The Wire' or, moving on to CIA
operatives, Carrie from 'Homeland'. McNulty states
openly at one point that its what makes him good for his job that
makes him bad for everything else. Yet the detective is held to be
obsessively dedicated, trampling over social niceties and shouting at
adversity in the pursuit of his case.
When
you look at Lisbeth Salander (from 'Girl With the Dragon
Tattoo', below), Sarah Lund (from 'The Killing', below) or Kurt Wallander (from... oh, you guessed, below) a more appropriate word
might be 'autistic'. Salander is a gifted outsider, a tight-lipped
emo. Lund and Wallander are less dynamic challengers to the status
quo than crumpled figures. Defeated by life, crime-solving is the one
area where they can have control. Unable to cope with the world at
large, they focus on a microcosm of it - like a kind of art therapy.
That
two of these three figures should be women is sometimes held as a
form of feminism, a further example of Scandinavia being 'advanced'.
I think it's something else entirely. Society associates women with
nurturing, empathic roles – care work, customer services and so on.
The concept of an autistic outsider woman vies with these
conceptions. But it's also noteworthy how institutions, particularly
public institutions try to feminise their image to portray the right
note of approachability. Think of the way the BBC has decided it's
nickname is “Auntie”, despite the fact no-one else calls it that
without being told to. (Its generally referred to by staff by it's
original Orwellian name, Big Brother.) By giving the cop, the person
society has assigned to uphold common decency, a female face, Nordic
Noir plays up to this. But it then distorts that sympathetic female
face into something far less recognisable.
And
if they export well? By design or (more likely) accident, all of this
does in some way play up to popular stereotypes about well-meaning
but melancholic Scandinavians. (Such as the popular supposition that
Sweden has an unusually high suicide rate.) They commonly use the
bleached look common to modern dramas – silver-grey skies, muted
blues and greens. (Prompting Sam Wollaston to ask in the Guardian, “are there really no primary colours?”) Us foreign viewers can innocently fancy that
Scandinavia actually looks that way.
In
fact it's the two popular perceptions of Scandinavia handily rolled
into one. They live in some liberal utopia of tolerance, overly
generous welfare and designer furniture. But of course it's a sham,
they're all secret drinkers and depressives. Our prejudices were
correct, we knew it all along! While of course we can simultaneously
be responsive to the plot lines. Even if these dramas have been
incubated in Scandinavia, the two-headed monster of neo-liberalism
and narrow nationalist xenophobia haunts our lives too. We can
imagine we're watching somewhere strange and remote to us, even as
we're able to relate to everything. It's like the way the best
angsty, alienated music is made by youths. The rest of us can relate
to those feelings, but youths are likely to be carrying them at their
strongest.
Crime
As Creative Art
'The
Bridge' had its first series broadcast in Scandinavia in
2011, making it something of a late entry in the Nordic Noir stakes -
after the phrase had passed into common currency. And so, perhaps
deliberately, it chooses to vary from the formula - taking something
of a chess move away from the others.
Though
there's an autistic similarity of sorts to Salander or Lund, Saga is
not cut from the same cloth. For one thing, with her patented
Scandinavian blonde locks, sports car and leathers, you could make an
action figure out of her relatively easily. (Though perhaps you could
also have a Sarah Lund, with swappable jumpers.) Even Saga's name
seems to border on a superhero codename. She's less dysfunctional
than differently functional. In some ways she's more like the
“high-functioning sociopath” of 'Sherlock',
fused with the vulnerable Pinnochio innocence of Data in 'Star
Trek Next Generation'.
And
this is underlined by the premise. Both Lund and Salander have a male
companion when they make their investigations. But the concept of
'The Bridge', heralded in the title, is the
odd-couple relationship between Swedish Saga and Danish Martin. (It
is almost hilarious the way a show with such an insular-sounding
premise could find a foreign audience. The titles underline this by
presenting the word “Bridge” in Swedish and Danish side-by-side.
They're precisely one letter different.) While Saga is brilliant but
cold and remote, Martin is instinctual, worldly while world-weary and
something of a philanderer. Their mis-communications are quite often
played for laughs. (Perhaps there's even some Spock and Kirk in those
moments.)
However,
the real difference is over the structure. There's the same general
format, where a single incident snowballs into large-scale events.
But the criminals are less hidden in institutions, their one
discovered moment unravelling their deceit, than criminal masterminds
outside the system. While Nordic Noir is not exactly scrupulous about
credibility, 'The Bridge' dances furthest from
believability, sometimes straying into 'Seven'
territory. And these crimes have at least an ostensible political
motivation. Chesterton's comment “the criminal is the creative
artist, the detective only the critic” could have been coined for
'The Bridge'.
In
the first series, the Truth Teller is committing an ostentatious
series of crimes, all publicly announced, with the claim this is to
draw attention to social problems. It's suggested he wins a fair
degree of public sympathy, despite his murderous methods. It's like
taking things on a step, where the failings of a nominal social
democracy have become a given.
This
is mirrored in the second series with an eco-terrorist cell. While
the series pulls a switch half-way through, which both muddies the
waters and makes matters more similar to the first , let's focus on
the cell for reasons... well, of familiarity.
BBC4
have in recent years reserved the Saturday night timeslot for foreign
dramas, something a bit arty and brainy while still a bracing
thriller. Though both 'The Bridge' and French cop
show 'Spiral' (above) have been shown in this slot, they are quite different beasts. If Nordic Noir works as an export
through playing up to national stereotypes, it gains traction
precisely by playing against them. It's set in
Paris, yet in an entirely different city to the scenic tourist
magnet, with its smart-waitered cafes serving lattes to the chic
beneath the Eiffel Tower. Instead there's anonymous estates and
il-equipped cop shops. While 'The Bridge' is sleek
and stylish, 'Spiral' is gritty and fast-moving,
often shot hand-held. Nobody, I am guessing, has bought a domestic
furnishing after watching 'Spiral'.
Series
four of 'Spiral',subtitled 'State of
Terror', (2012) introduced new adversaries – an anarchist
gang who had taken up terrorist tactics. And its these big
differences between the two shows make the immense similarities
between the terrorist gangs all the more striking.
Let's
start by acknowledging the different shows do generate genuine
differences. In 'The Bridge', the gang are so
media-savvy you wonder if they have their own design consultant. They
release choreographed and stylish videos, like a cross between the
Residents and Bob Dylan's classic 'Subterranean Homesick
Blues' video. Its terrorism as performance (below). While in
'Spiral' they're a gang of scruffy punks, led by
someone looking remarkably like Dennis the Menace's Gallic cousin (below). As
much as they communicate anything, they do it by spray-painting a
wall.
Yet
note that virtually Saga's first comment on the show was that cuts to
library funding are “foolish”. Unblinded by sentiment, we're
being tipped off, she sees through all that bogus economics. As with
much Nordic Noir, the assumption is that she is reflecting the
audience's liberal opinions. And her response to the eco-terrorist
cell proceeds along similar lines. Partly her detective instincts are
keen to assemble the puzzle. Partly her autism is relieved to be
dealing with something explicable. But she also gloms on so quickly
to their methods that she must be in some way sympathetic to them.
And
in many ways the programme goes with her, simply taking for granted
that not enough is being done about climate change and all the rest.
Their slogan, “the world is bigger than us”, isn't really so far
from my own Council's professed aim to be a “one planet city”. This isn't any-cause fervent fanaticism.
Any frustration felt is quite genuine.
None
of the cops in 'Spiral', characterised quite
differently as day-jobbers, show any of the same implicit sympathies.
And indeed, 'Spiral' is in general inferior to
something like 'The Wire' in it's easy,
one-dimensional portrayals of 'criminals'. But there's the same
careful need to separate the 'good' protestors from the 'bad'. Here
the gang uneasily share a squat with non-violent protestors, mostly
concerned with providing the “sans papiers” with shelter. They
are consequently torn between opposition to the gang, whose
adventurism directly endangers them, and a reluctance to assist the
police. And they distrust the cops not because they are the bad set
against the good, or even because they are misguided, but because
they know events have placed them on opposite sides. Their distrust
is seen as understandable, even when the cops function as our main
characters.
Yet,
and this is perhaps the crucial thing, while they receive an implicit
pat on the back for doing the right thing, it's taken for granted
that their 'good' actions will accomplish nothing. Their reward for
all this virtue is that its its own reward. In 'Spiral'
they ceaselessly picket detention centres, but it's predetermined
that after bashing their pots and pans they will go home and the
centre will still be there. Similarly, 'The Bridge'
ends up at a Climate Change conference, with an army of chanting
protestors outside. But the story doesn't focus on them. They're just
a crowd scene, a backdrop to set the real action against.
And
yet there is little if any connection made between the ineffectualism
of the 'good' protestors and the militancy of the 'bad'. And without
this, what is left? What is it that makes the 'bad' bad? In both
cases, the driving force is the guru-like leader, insisting this is
the way it must be. (Needless to say, these anarchists have a leader
and accept him as such.) The rest of the group then orient around
this, as a bunch of henchmen and a waverer.
Now,
this model may well match some political terrorist groups. In fact, I
could name some right now with no effort. Yet what it really matches,
note for note, is cults. Ultimately, they have more in common with
Charlie Manson's Family than they do with, for example, the
Weathermen. The leader's teachings must not be questioned. The
actions he commands will do away with this sick old world, and take
us somewhere better. Yet it is implicit that what his commands are
really aimed at is the group themselves. The
succession of ever-more-militant tasks serve to bond the group
together. The members are on permanent trial, constantly asked to
prove themselves again and then again.
Any
expressions of doubt are not met with political arguments against
reformism or references to the desperate nature of the situation, but
simple accusations of disloyalty. Waverers are just being chicken.
What the group is doing must be right, because that's what the group
is doing. Anyway, its too late to get out now. And this model only
matches actual political groups insofar as these might themselves
overlap with cults. It's classic confirmation bias.
This
is at its most explicit in 'The Bridge'. The group
waverer is most hesitant over having a younger brother, who he is
entirely responsible for. Needless to say these responsibilities mean
nothing to the group, as they are something outside of it. And the
younger brother is shown trying to fit in with his gang of peers, his
greater efforts being met with greater derision. Of course the two
plot-lines work in parallel.
The
problem is not that either political gang is presented critically.
I've seen enough of political groups in my time to have no
rose-tinted views of them. They are often quite capable of becoming
their own self-parody, of making stupid and self-marginalising
decisions of their own accord. Nevertheless, there's a clear
historical connection between increased repression, decreased
effectiveness and increased militancy. The big era of leftist groups
turning terrorist in the western world was the early Seventies –
the Angry Brigade, the Red Army Faction, the Weather Underground and
so on. And the people in those groups would have seen friends and
comrades be beaten, imprisoned and in no small amount of cases
killed. Of course, the evidence of hindsight is clear – their
reaction was the wrong one, it only served to play further into the
authorities' hands. But if it was a mistake, there was a context for
the mistake. It wasn't a random outbreak of fanaticism.
The
upshot is this - political protest is part of a flourishing
democracy. It should be permitted, perhaps even to an extent
encouraged. Tolerance makes us better people. Just as long as its
implicitly understood by all involved that it will not and must not
accomplish anything at all. To try and step outside of this is to
place yourself inside an authoritarian and fanatical cult, which will
never let you leave. We live in a town which has no other show.
And
yet I like it. I'm glad its there. I lapped up both shows.
That
may partly be down to sheer amusement value, like hearing Niall
Ferguson on history or Michael Gove on anything at all. Though that
alone would not deal with the way these stereotypes occur in
otherwise 'quality' shows. There's something more important. I prefer
it when political views with which I sympathise get portrayed, even
in such an absurdly distorted way. There's a famous quote, though
no-one seems to know whether it came from Gandhi or American unionist
Nicholas Klein: “First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you. Then you win.”
Its
a problematic quote, especially with that word “win”. Quite
often, “win” would seem to mean “get seriously hurt”. And of
course even when there have been actual victories, “win” is still
a way of capping the bottle. We're often told the Civil Rights
movement “won”, even when it's two chief adherents (Martin Luther
King and Malcolm X) were both killed mid-campaign and racism is
rampant in modern America. The more radical wings are chopped from
history, their demands forgotten. And the 'good' protestors of today
are told that if they are not 'winning' like their forebears it must
be because they're not good enough.
But
focus instead on “laugh” and “fight”. Protestors can be
denounced by politicians, caricatured in dramas, or scoffed at in
sitcoms. But that's still a whole lot better than “ignore”.
I'm
opposed to the mechanistic notion of how culture works, which
sometimes tries to pass itself off as materialist. Culture is not
rubber-stamped upon our thoughts by the cunning schemes of the ruling
classes, nor is it imprinted by the material conditions of our
existence. If, like me, you see history as the history of class
struggle, then culture is one more arena where that struggle takes
place. The floor of that arena is raked against us, but that's as
true of any other arena.
Of
course these shows are merely thinking up something juicily
contemporary and enticingly risqué to spice themselves up. (“What
if the villains were terrorists, but seemed to have some sort of
point?”) But at some level, the existence of pro-immigrant protests
in France or counter-summit mobilisations in Denmark have managed to
intrude into the regular world of cultural production. “Ignore”
failed. Now we're onto the next phase...
PostScript!
Though the idea came separately, I could not deny I was influenced by this exceedingly good post Shabogan Graffiti wrote for Philip
Sandifer's blog. They don't quite cover the same thing. While
Shabogan Jack talks of the class base of villainy, one notable
feature for both 'Spiral' and 'The
Bridge'is that class is almost entirely absent - political
activism is assumed to be innately voluntaristic. And hence of
course, either cultish, hypocritical or both...
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