Jordskott

Anyone who has walked in Swedish forests get the feeling of the raw power of nature. Wild wolves, Moose (bigger than horses), Bears, but also the sheer dimensions. You can find forests where there is no road for 40km.... deadly, mysterious and beautiful... seas of trees.

In other words, walk though a fores in the brecon beacons or Scotland, and you know you can find your way out. Try that in Sweden and you will probably die. Swedish forests can be scarily big; and mysterious.

I was told about this show by the gf, to keep my Swedish going. I am so glad I started watching this. Starts off as a police drama, but pretty soon, things get strange. You have to pay attention to it.

Clues are littered from the start pointing at the dark under-plot.

Excellent work. och tack att jag kunde ova min svenska!

I was very pleasantly surprised when I watched this. I was expecting a Swedish crime drama like The Killing, but got so much more. This is a type of science fiction and I love science fiction. In some ways it resembles Pan's Labyrinth (from Spain I think), and if you love Earth Spirit Mythology then this show will please you. It has plenty of characters up to no good, for noble or selfish reasons, is full of surprises that eventually make sense and, though not big on special effects, what is needed is done well. There are tense moments and a beautiful tension throughout that keep the viewer interested. The story is sufficiently plausible to keep this work at an A-plus rather than a B-movie standard. The photography and place is very beautiful and creates atmosphere. This is a work that has done a lot with very little. Other reviewers have called this clever and they are very correct. The acting is easily good enough for mono speakers like me to forget the subtitles. I loved it.

As I am fond of Scandinavian suspense thrillers, I try to watch them as much as possible, preferably in sequence. True, as the "aces are high", it is natural that in a search of a new angle or background, the result can be less interesting to certain viewers.

I, for example, have to admit that I am not much into fabulous creatures or supernatural forces penetrating into "trivial" human world, so the last episodes did not bear the same value for me as primary events and tensions, but luckily there was no "deus ex machina" or superhero present, and gradually appearing non-real elements did not make me cancel the watching. At times, tense just faded away and made me ponder that less duration or number of episodes could have been becoming.

Unlike in most of Swedish series with alternating actors-actresses, almost all performers here were unknown to me (apart from Ann Petrén), but I cannot say I was particularly impressed by anyone whose career should be followed in the future. So, a decent series, but similar with the ones like Maria Wern and Arne Dahl rather than with Bron/Broen or Millennium. For those, however, fond of additional mysticism and gloomy mood, Jordskott can be recommended with bigger enthusiasm.

When i started seeing the film, I expected a crime. Strange things happened in the first episode, that almost made me stop watching. Luckily i continued watching, and realized that this was a fairy tale. We have wonderful fairy tales in Norway, and i hoped that somebody would try to apply the new animation techniques to retell the fairy tales. Jordskott seems to be a modernized fairy tale . I know of a few Norwegian films that also put the fairy tale into modern times. These are Trolljegeren, Thale, and Gåten Ragnarok. Jordskott is the first series i see with this telling technique, and the best try on a modern Nordic fairy tale so far.

It seems like most "professional" reviewers are trying to hype Jordskott as being the next Bron, particularly in Swedish newspapers. I started watching it with a very positive mindset with these opinions in mind. However I don't feel that the quality of the plot even comes close to it. Jordskott feels like a thinly veiled environmental propaganda piece about the dangers of corporate greed and the exploitation of natural resources. This would be fine if the writers had bothered to create a more immersive experience. There are too many loose threads that are never resolved, and on the contrary from Bron where you're kept guessing and wondering where the story will take you next the reveals of this story are mediocre and illogical. The police aren't clever, their reactions as events unfold aren't credible, the protagonist takes way longer than the audience to understand what's happening and the corporate greed angle is crude and illogical for anyone with even a tangential understanding of how a company works and how people think. It attempts to be a modern take on Äppelkriget without the humour. I'll watch it to the end to see how they manage to tie everything together as I've already reached episode 8, but I don't feel particularly optimistic. Such a wasted opportunity to do something really cool with the deep, mysterious forests of Sweden.