Nobel

After Headhunters, I'll watch anything with Aksel Hennie in it. He conveys so much without even speaking. Nobel is a realistic look at the conflict in Afghanistan. I love the understated Norwegian way. No need to brag. Just get it done. We see the skill but also the humanity of a Spec Ops team serving tours in Afghanistan. The story line also follows the political efforts at making oil deals with the various factions of government and Taliban.In 2011, the Chinese eventually landed the deal. But exploration and mining will be fraught with difficulties in a country which, despite assistance from several countries to establish a government, today suffers a resurgence of terrorist factions.

This is the TV series which I felt like adding a review on IMDb for the very first time, especially, even before completely watching all the episodes. Breaking Bad was my favorite TV show ever and I never believed that there would be any other TV series with such amazing casting and character development at that level when it comes to being realistic. But after watching Narcos, I went ahead watching TV dramas made with other languages (other than English); then I found Nobel accidentally and completely started in believing in non- English/non-Hollywood creations.

When it comes to casting and character development, I believe they have done lots of research in studying the common attitudes, behavior, personalities, and psychological background of real people and the actors/actresses are 100% realistic and natural in their acting. Frankly, the quality of their acting is unbelievably amazing; I do not have enough words to express or describe it!!

I wished if I knew the Norwegian language while watching this. Because the composition of dialogues is too good to miss a single word of it. So I have to keep observing the subtitle. And their acting (expressions, gestures etc) is too good to miss by paying attention to subtitles. Everything has been composed in a well connecting manner and the presentation of the story is excellent in every aspect!

These days we tend to watch superheroes, fantasies and unrealistically hypothetical stories. But there are still some amazing people who see things differently and come up with even better stories that connect our day-to-day lives really well with realistic characters! Nobel is obviously one good example for that! This deserves 10/10!!!

P.S: I am a Sri Lankan who comes from a completely different cultural background. But this story feels so realistic and so natural even to me! Therefore, you can imagine how amazing the story, casting/acting and the character development of this is. The actors/actresses deserve serious recognition and in my opinion, Askel Hennie deserves the best actor award in every event I know.

Participation in modern peacekeeping operations has given countries like Norway new oppurtunities to show their skills and values more on wider international level. Mostly successfully, but everything has its price and influences on participants... All this is rather well depicted in Nobel where people working in various govenrmental institutions have to daily (re)assess their own concepts and attitudes.

But for me, for a person quite familiar with living in Nordic countries, not all the events shown seem plausible - as Norway is one of the least corrupted and most secure countries in the world. So the thrill and tension tend to fade away sometimes, and the main theme full of development aid, NGO contracts and guarding services do not let to share common feelings; the switch from personal issues to others is not always smooth as well. Moreover, in the last episode, you start to figure out what happens, and the very final scenes are too "rounding up", i.e. trivial.

The performances, however, are good, particularly Aksel Hennie as Lieutenant Erling Riiser and Anders Danielsen Lie as Lieutenant Jon Petter Hals; female characters are sketchier as often in films depicting war and military. Thus, from me, 8 points for acting and 6 for plot; the title is also confusing.

Nobel is not a bad Norwegian series, but I find e.g. Okkupert, Frikjent, Rød snø more versatile and catchier for "wider" audience.

I started watching Nobel on Netflix and was hooked from the first episode and ended up watching the whole series over two nights.The opening credits and sound track are haunting and I cant get the music out of my head. One reviewer has gone in to detail about the acting,cinematography and military inaccuracies. The acting was great and all the characters believable,the camera work sound and regarding the military inaccuracy its entertainment not a training film, I'm an ex soldier and as my kids always say to me " Just shut up and watch it dad your not there" so watch it and enjoy,and I hope they make another series.

There is little to say other than.....Superb!

I have only watched two other mini series of this quality. Bron Broen and Borgen. Co incidentally all of which are Scandinavian? There does seem to be a real talent here for quality. These series are so good, I actually enjoy subtitles because I know I am in for a treat. I look forward to discovering more of these gems.