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In the last two blog entries I've compared and contrasted the original Swedish "Wallander" series and the BBC British version. This link introduces us to an interesting discussion:
http://blogs.sun.com/racingsnake/entry/new_wallander_series_on_bbc
One contributor regrets the fact that in the British version the scene is so bright and sunny and the architecture so "Scandinavian Clean" whereas the Swedish version is more gloomy (weatherwise) and the architecture more dull and not particularly attractive. It's more like the real everyday Sweden.
One important item is the mention of a new HD video camera, the "Red One", that was probably used to make the British version. This camera produces stunning visual results. The British "Wallander" positively dazzles us.
I think that the Director has used this camera very cleverly. He shows a scene bathed in sunlight, and surrounded by clean "stainless" architecture, but the characters and the stories are far from "stainless". They are in fact deeply currupt and disturbing. The contrast is very effective. We are shocked by the differences between reality and image.
For those who know Britain and Scandinavia well there are some fascinating insights to be won when watching these two versions.
Last Saturday's "Wallander" (Swedish version) on BBC television was exciting and also quite bizarre. I guess that the theme was familly relationships and the nature of famillies and how fragmented these modern famillies can be. The bizarre element was that (as far as I could make out) there were at least three and possibly four police officers who were carrying out dangerous operations against Russian mafia killers while at the same time caring for their children as single parents. The most bizarre of all was the single parent "anti-mafia squad" police detective who was living in secret on a tugboat in the harbour together with his young daughter! Each morning he saw her off to school, fed the guinea pig and then set off to track down the world's most viscious men. At the same time his colleagues were going through similar single-parent familly acrobatics.
There was also an undercurrent: the theme of team spirit and mutual support among the police team. The team was the familly, and each one strove for professional excellence and lived or died depending on the vigilance of his/her team mate. The "real" famillies were broken and took second place behind the professional team, but did not lack parental care and love.
Bizarre, and disturbing, but good television. (Until I can get out and about again you're going to have to put up with more of this bizarre "City" photography).
I am both unfortunate and at the same time enormously priviliedged to live close to Heathrow Airport (LHR) and underneath one of the world's busiest and most important flight paths. Normally the sky is full of con-trails tracing the track of huge aircraft making their way to and from London Airport (LHR) and the major airports on the continent of Europe. The surroundings are never quiet. The rumble is constant and depending on wind direction flights from "the world's busiest airport" going to Central and Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Russia and the distant destinations of the old British Empire - India, Pakistan, Africa, the Arabian Gulf, Australia, - come directly over my house, and those bound for America are visible and highly audible as they turn away before reaching me. I welcome them, log them and also curse them.
But today everything is absolutely QUIET!!!! The sky is CLEAR!!!! The dust cloud from the volcano in Iceland has stopped all aviation. There is not a single rumbling noise; only the sound of birds. No planess bound for America: in fact NOTHING to ANYWHERE.
At which point I make a big leap and signal the TV programme. BBC television recently showed a British-made police drama series based the Swedish novels about the Ystad Police detective Kurt Wallander. The BBC is now showing the original Swedish-made TV dramas in Swedish with sub-titles. It's fascinating to compare and contrast how the different film directors and cameramen have filmed the "Wallander" dramas in similar but also in distinctively different ways. But at the end of the day we are left with one very clear message: whether Swedish or British we have such similar concerns, and our lives are so closely linked.
And so, back to the Icelandic volcano: no aviation, no contact, no meeting point, yet all of us facing the same potentially serious economic consequencies, and all of us realising that we live in one very small "common home".
