deadwind

As you know my obsession with Finland is reaching its nadir (god, I hope that's the case) and it has lately manifested as a major investment in a frankly pretty trashy murder program called Deadwind which I think is a Finnish-German coproduction, *on Netflix. 

To be fair to myself the main interest is not the sprawling, cliched storyline of loose ends and melodramatic conversations but of course the locations and the language, which naturally my poor brain continues to fail to retain any of (except kiitos, which the very polite people in this program say a lot, in different ways reflecting all the different ways you can say thank you in English too). Really I enjoy this program the same reason I enjoy Shetland, or for that matter Jack Irish, it's made in a place I am familiar-ish with and like to see represented and perhaps, just perhaps, there are bits I've been to. I mean the acting is good but the script is just the same old hack in exotic tongue/scenery and I can't help feeling these are smart actors (probably extremely accomplished in many other ways) who are just doing a job of work and not doing it badly but actors embrace the project don't they if they're professionals. 

Some of the show, a significant plot point portion of it, is shot in Käpylä, my favourite place in Helsinki, and indeed an important element of the program without putting too fine a point on it makes a thing out of something I'm fairly sure is not a thing, that these houses are joined together underground. I'm doubt that's true or even possible but I suppose I won't go out on a limb over it. 

There's a lot of this kind of shizzle, with people driving long distances but explaining what they're doing over the top of it: 

Essentially it's fun if you're a Finnophile but even Finnophiles probably end up thinking... isn't there something different about Finland, that means it's a bit above (or at least to one side of) a long involved 'pretty woman murdered, pretty woman solves it' show? 

Update - S2:E3 - TFW the mayor hides from a gunman in city hall one evening and she is the only person in city hall (except for the gunman) and then she is rescued but the gunman escapes and they just drop her off at home without even seeing her to the door because the gunman knows where she works, I guess, but could not possibly know where she lives???!!!

Update S2 E11 - Nurmi can fly a helicopter but he can't bear to be a part of his own child's life!? There's actually something exceptionally conservative about this show in that everyone without two parents is up shit creek psychologically and it's just a given that that is what happens. Karppi's mother, whose funeral she leaves half way through because she gets a clue, never told her who her father was. This is why she is emotionally more equipped to solve crimes than to be a parent. Karppi's kids' father is dead and they act up in all kinds of ways, Emil by having ridiculously long hair and playing computer games all the time and bullying other kids at school, and Henna by... well... no spoilers. In S2 Kerttu is tormented not only by not really knowing her father, hence druggs, but also by him giving her a vast, sprawling 'cottage' in a dirty part of Estonia near an abandoned prison (yeah, that's a holiday destination to die for). (Also to die at, as our heroes nearly do). 

* Nah. It's Finnish only. I just thought 'why do they keep bringing up Germany all the time?' An Australian co-production would be like 'well, Belgians aren't going to understand this unless there's a Belgian best friend and his dog Milou'. I guess it was just, like, a storyline. They probably didn't even go to Germany to shoot the 'Germany' scenes.