From 2011-2018, fans of police procedurals were treated to a Nordic noir series called The Bridge (Bron/Broen). A Danish-Swedish coproduction, the 38 episodes dealt with crimes that involved Malmo and Copenhagen. These crimes fell under the responsibilities of two fascinating lead characters, Saga Noren, played by Sofia Helin, and Martin Rohde, played by Kim Bodnia, who went on to make a splash in Killing Eve.
Saga is one of the most complex characters I ever have seen in a detective series. While nobody in the show labels her as autistic, she clearly seems to be. She cannot read social communication. As a result, her demeanor is blunt, seemingly uncaring or not understanding. While The Bridge is one of the most stylish and brilliant series of its kind in so many ways, most enthusiastic viewers cannot speak for long without turning the topic to Helin’s character of Saga.
In 2023, Sofia Helin and the script writer of The Bridge, Camilla Ahlgren, as well as others from The Bridge team, created Fallen (Sanningen). Helin plays another Swedish police inspector, a Stockholm cold case specialist, Iris Broman. This character is different from Saga. We see that she feels emotions deeply, and shows her feelings very clearly—in words, facial expressions, and at times physically. While her previous character Saga couldn’t smile or understand a joke or compliment, Iris intuits all that is around her.
Fallen has been streaming on MHz Choice-Prime Video Channels. Just recently, Kino Lorber, in cooperation with MHz, has released the series of six episodes on DVD. For those who love the outstanding musical score of The Bridge and its noir photography, be prepared for a different atmosphere. Fallen is more straight forward in its look, relying more on realism. Having said that, I should add that throughout the linked story that runs through the episodes, there are creatively-filmed flashbacks to the murder of Iris’s love. There are stylishly-filmed moments where Iris imagines that her deceased love still is with her.
The storytelling is strong. At first, in Malmo, Iris looks into a 15-20-year-old missing person case after a skull is found in a wooded area. Soon, the mystery becomes more complex, with more possible victims. And then the plot extends to the unsolved fatal shooting of her loved one in Stockholm. With three cases simultaneously unfolding, some crime dramas tend to wilt. Not this one. The scripts are well-conceived, beautifully paced.
In addition to the crime solving aspects of Fallen, there also are subplots. Each of the main characters, and a few of the lesser ones, have interesting personal narratives. There are dysfunctional siblings. There are drug dealers with dark secrets, unfaithful marriages, affairs that ended poorly.
So many fascinating histories and secrets. At one point, Jens, Iris’s cop partner in Malmo, says to her, “That’s the difficult part of our job, to see what isn’t there.”
Jens is a devoted dog lover. He, too, has a past. Iris’s cop partner in Stockholm also appears to have an untold past. I can’t help but add that neither of her partner’s has the charisma that Kim Bodnia brought to The Bridge. In fact, when he left the show after the third season, the series suffered heavily in his absence.
Ahlgren’s scripts have just the right combination of resolved circumstances and unearthed character details. Viewers will realize that there is room for further character discoveries—and there certainly is opportunity for more seasons of crime solving by this collection of colorful characters!
Audrey Kupferberg is a film and video archivist and retired appraiser. She is lecturer emeritus and the former director of Film Studies at the University at Albany and co-authored several entertainment biographies with her late husband and creative partner, Rob Edelman.
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