The Bridge

1st series: For lovers of "over-twisted" and socially conscious Nordic detective stories, this is something like a luxury chocolate shop. Although the series follows the model of an American thriller on thematic crime, it of course translates it into the Nordic value system and perceives it in the context of social phenomena - the mysterious criminal acts like Nolan's Joker for some time, i.e., a director of phenomena that reveal the fondness of a peaceful society for excess. Some of his "trials" are brilliant, and their borderline moral-ethical nature goes beyond ordinary political correctness. The fact that The Bridge is moving towards a "more conciliatory" motivation of the perpetrator is something like an expected tax, which does not spoil the pleasure of the chaos that "TT" is committing. What's more, the tax accounts for dizzying profits - a beautifully asymmetrical central duo with the jovial Kim Bodnia and the alien Sofia Helin (her Saga finally shed light on what is so sexy about Cumberbatch's Sherlock for some women), metrosexual light design and framing of shots that is chillingly beautiful and protects The Bridge from decaying into sentiment and genre clichés. Pure pleasure from the visual that is thought out to the last irrelevant shot (even the filler scene in which the detective gets out of the car and goes home is lit so that one sees how someone thought of it as an integral part of the whole), cold and withdrawn atmosphere, an interesting probe into the Scandinavian conscience and, despite its predictability, also a strongly emotional finale... If you even remotely like names such as Mankell, Nesbo or Larsson and sometimes tear-up at the BBC version of Wallander, then this has to be perfect for you. 2nd series: There are a few more awkward transitions and strange discrepancies, again repeating some of the purposeful work with side storylines (the characters and their destinies appear only as purposeful "complications" of the plot), but on the other hand, the creators learned this time and constantly maintain the tension and "global" perspective of the case. If the first series fell off a bit around the 7th episode, the tempo is constant here and the gradation paradoxically comes by moving to the intimate level of the characters. The ending is one of the best in the genre, there is a monstrous cliffhanger of the main plot, but the greatest strength brought to the narration is the repetition of the motif of revenge from the end of the first series. Jens, as the "legacy" of the first series, works great all the time, and while the dialogues and social "faux pas" of Saga and Martin no longer have the same intensity, the emaciated specter of "truth terrorists" pushes their relationship further to the bitter finale. I'm really looking forward to the next series, because the creators have shown the ability to maintain quality, not change the concept and at the same time move it forward. In addition, unlike Sherlock, Saga is not subject to the position of "antisocial superstar" and the more she opens up, the more human, imperfect and the less cool she is. In fact, she is quite annoying with her obsessiveness and in some respects she begins to evoke her colleague Lund. (01/02/2013) (less) (more)