Series of the Week: “Midnight Sun”
I have long drawn the attention of my readers to Scandinavian productions, films for television and cinema, and series, all with a quality standard similar to any other country in the world. And it is in this pattern that the miniseries “Midnight Sun” (“Midnattssol”, Sweden, 2016) was made.
It is possible that this title evoked the memory of a 1985 eponymous film starring dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov. The point in common is the title and the geographic region, the Polar Circle, a place so far north of the Earth, that during the summer, the sun does not set.
In Swedish production, the story takes place in a remote region of northern Sweden.A French citizen is cruelly and strangely murdered, tied to the blade of a helicopter, almost torn apart by the rotation of the device.
Who takes the case is police officer Rutger Burlin (Peter Stomare), who calls the prosecutor Anders Harnesk (Gustaf Hammarsten) to lead the legal part. As it was a French citizen, French police are reported through diplomatic channels, and police officer Kahina Zadi (Leila Bekthi) is sent to Sweden to follow up the investigation.
Everything seems strange from the start. The victim seems to have no identity in either Sweden or France. Soon more people are murdered, always in a cruel way, and a list of 22 people seems to be the connecting link between all.
However, in the small town where everyone lives, the deaths arouse a sense of anger at the Sami ethnic minority, jokingly called Lapps, historically despised by the “pure” Swedes.This ethnic group lived throughout the northern part of Sweden, Norway, Finland and the Kola peninsula of Russia.
Throughout the eight episodes of the series, new events provoke the involvement between the characters and raise doubts about the reasons that would have motivated all those murders.
Unlike so many series that we see, with virtuous good guys and evil villains, here all have flaws and qualities, as well as shadows in the past. Police officer Kahina was a still adolescent mother, and she left the child with her mother, never coming back to her family again. Promoter Anders is gay but can not take on, is shy and confused, besides being half-blooded by Sami’s mother and Swedish father, which puts him in big trouble in the environment in which he lives.
This series raises interesting questions about racism in Sweden, a country considered one of the best in the world to live. Like the Millenium trilogy by the writer Stieg Larsson, who denounced domestic violence and neo-Nazism in Sweden, “Midnight Sun” reveals the problems of the Sami ethnic group, whose lands were invaded and plundered in search of ores and other sources of wealth.
For centuries, just as in Brazil, Canada, and other countries, the natives were deceived, plundered, massacred, and lived on the margins of “normal” society. During the process, the Sami shamans came to be burned at the stake as heretics.Some of the characters evoke this mystical side of Scandinavian culture, very common in the productions of the region.
The series manages to show this duality of behavior without taking parties or victimizing the Sami.And it shows that even in one of the least corrupt countries in the world horrible acts can happen because of money.
Unlike the other series where the hero solves everything with his bullets, “Midnight Sun” shows that we are all subject to passions, weaknesses, idealisms and firmness of purpose. That is, humans beings.
Original Title: “Midnattssol”