What a saga!
There were two things trending on Twitter on Saturday night after 11: #StamfordBridge and #theBridge. Now I’m very happy that Chelsea won the Champions League but I’m even happier I didn’t miss the finale of The Bridge, the latest Nordic Noir to be shown on British TV. I had heard all the buzz about The Killing but hadn’t seen it, but I did manage to see all 10 episodes of The Bridge, which does leave British police dramas looking like they haven’t moved on much since their heyday in the 80’s.
The Bridge is aesthetically shot with faded greys and greens dominating, together with beautiful shots of the bridge itself which connects Denmark and Sweden. The two detectives Saga Noren on the Swedish side and Martin Rohde on the Danish, although attractive are not clean washed and nicely dressed like the CSI mob, rather, it seems like they rarely change their clothes. If Saga, the female star, ever does, she just changes T shirts in the office in front of her colleagues.
Saga has become something of an icon and a hero loved by both men and women judging by the fans she has on Twitter. She is brilliant at her job but unable to make small talk, break the rules, tell lies or even smile, which, at the beginning of the series, renders her somewhat antipatica. However, gradually we understand that she is different, like when she goes into a bar after work one day and asks a man if he wants to come back and have sex with her. (Apparently this raised many more eyebrows in the UK than in Scandinavia.) She’s not interested in the preliminaries, and immediately the act is over, gets back on the computer to look at the corpses she is investigating.
She is clearly on the autistic spectrum and although she doesn’t understand the mechanics of normal social interaction, she has the sharpest mind in the police force and is nerve-wrackingly brave in the face of great danger. Although the actress who plays her, Sofia Helin, 40, says she is the complete opposite and had difficulty getting into the character’s mind set, she sometimes asks herself what would Saga do now? By the last episode we have come to admire Saga’s independence, courage and lack of self-doubt, even though she always tries to learn, but it is her freedom from emotion that allows her to be all those things.
She also has a fling with August, the Danish detective’s 20 year old son, who is fascinated by her. In the last episode, when they are going through his emails, looking for clues to the killer who has been emailing him in the guise of an ex-girlfriend, she sees that he has talked a lot about Saga.
“I see you called me a MILF” she says.
“Yes,” he replies a little embarrassed. “Do you know what that means?”
“Yes”, she replies nonchalantly, “but I’m not a mother.”
What would it be like if more women were like Saga? Is she a good female role model? Let’s discuss in the comments….
The next series will be shot in October. Don’t miss it!
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