It’s the Scandi equivalent of Midsommer Murders: an improbably high murder rate in a very small, tranquil setting.
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That’s as may be - but Midsomer Murders is crap: it doesn’t have Alexandra Rapaport.
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I’m trying to work out why all the episodes are in summer.
Having watched a few Scandi shows (plus Finnish) recently, it’s always gloomy and the weather’s awful.
PS not really trying to work it out.
Not disagreeing with you. Does make a change from the usual Scandi stuff. Also, the bad things only seem to happen during summer time.
That’s far from the only reason it’s crap.
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There’s a good doco on the Stasi on SBS. Some of the Stasi operatives were cold bastards.
Anna Funder, the Oz writer who wrote Stasiland, was interviewed.
A new series on SBS - Sambre
It’s a 6-part French series set on the (fictional) river Sambre.
A rapist attacks women as they’re on their way to work, starting in 1988. The first victim and her husband handle it very differently - marriage dissolves.
Subsequent episodes (I’m up to 3) actions at different periods after the first rape. The mayor, very much one of the people, has a press conference with one of the victims which puts egg on her face. Victims don’t want to publicise it. She’s making the local area unpopular for investors etc.
May be worth a look if you’re interested in how the French justice system works and how victims are affected.
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Hundred Years of Solitude starts Wednesday on Netflix (I think).
I have heard it called unfilmable, so let’s see. Seen a couple of episodes, which goes way past where I’d got to in reading. I have copies in both Spanish and English to help the vocabulary.
Picked up on a very rare offering on Amazon Prime…Perfekt Verpasst…a German rom-com, and moreover both parties are over 50 and there’s no mention of WW1, Hitler, WW2, the DDR or the Stasi. Problem was that the subtitling dropped out from time to time although it was reasonably easy to follow. At the end though, Ralf, the main man, said something I hadn’t realised…probably when the subtitles were down…which cleared up a major thread I hadn’t picked up.
It was still good fun.
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Finished a few, started a few
BTW the river Sambre I mentioned earlier isn’t fictional. It’s almost on the Belgian border.
Netflix - Saw this Spanish series, 1992, where someone is burning to death people involved in the Seville Expo of 1992. I didn’t even know there was an expo, but there was, and it left Seville almost bankrupt and there are still many many buildings left, although dilapidated. I checked up where it was held - towards the eastern end of the canal of the Guadalquivir and wished I’d seen it in May. Amparo’s husband is a victim in one of the firebomb attacks, as is one of the organisers of the Expo. She is rescued by Richi, an old friend of her husband, ex-cop now security guard and full time drunk. Weekly episodes.
The Åre Murders in Sweden, written by Viveca Stern, author of the Sandhamn Murders. A young Stockholm police officer has gone home on stress leave and immediately gets involved in a young girl’s disappearance.
And The Law According to Lidia Poët, set in Turin in the late 19th century. Lidia is attempting to become the first female lawyer in Italy, but blocked at every point. It’s not really that realistic, everyone is stylishly dressed (or undressed).
Been watching cricket nearly every night, so that’s all but over - at night anyway.
The final series of Valeria is coming soon.
And started on I Love You to Death on Apple TV. The Age bloke compared it to Fleabag. I’m not seeing it. Raúl is a 40-odd bloke who just discovered he has cardiosarcoma (cancer of the heart) and needs an operation in a fortnight. Veronica Echégui as Marta turns out to be an old schoolmate of his and is a real playgirl with lots of conventional friends. One of her pregnant friends is talking about how sick she feels, and Marta goes “hmmm”. I’m not sure Marta is as horrible a person as Fleabag.
Finished Valeria…pretty good finale, although it might have gone over the top with the Five Years Later ( a smidge Hollywood, even though they’re incapable of doing the series).
You might enjoy a movie called In Family I Trust (In Spanish, it translates from People Who Come and Go but with a pun). Clara Lago (Gangs of Galicia, Neighbour, A Spanish Affair as a Basque girl who’s dumped on her hen’s night in Seville and returns to her home followed by the Sevillian barman trying to take her bag back to her)
Carmen from Valeria is in In Family I Trust with a dilemma, also in a new show on AppleTV called I Love You To Death before her fiancé is found to have a very serious condition. The Age reviewer thought it was just like Fleabag. I think the reviewer is a fool.
I’ve seen the first 2 episodes of Envious and enjoying it, but Argentinian Spanish is much harder to follow.
I’ve started a few which I’m trying to decide if I want to continue.
But just finished The Gardener (Spanish - Netflix) and L’Éclipse (French - Acorn) which weren’t bad.
The Gardener is set in Pontevedra in Galicia, NW Spain, and is about a gardener who also kills people. But one job he’s asked to do, he develops an attachment to the intended victim. Has a lot of twists, but not bad. I’ve seen that victim in a few minor roles, but she’s in a main role here and does it well (Catalina Sopelano from The Neighbour and Sky Rojo). Not bad at all.
L’Éclipse is set in Bouzols in southern France where a young girl disappears during an eclipse. The two female gendarmes are conflicted because their teenage children are involved. It’s a smallish farming community in an area where the Cathars were involved in the 1200s (The Da Vinci Code and a show on SBS, Labyrinth). You keep seeing the town in the credits, and a strange one in that houses are on a crag in a gorge and either side of the gorge but the geology doesn’t figure in the story. A show called Monsieur Spade was out a year or two ago, also where it was filmed and didn’t figure the gorge in the story. It was Sam Spade from the Maltese Falcon, starring Cilve Own,post war.
One episode to go on Valhalla Murders, Icelandic drama on SBS.
Not far from the story that prompted the last few seasons of Line of Duty. Vengeance being taken on those who committed crimes at an orphanage (boys’ home) 30 years ago.
It’s good, but the ambience doesn’t permit. These Scandi shows (not Sandhamn Murders) are all filmed in winter…or look like they are. Brrrr!