The Danish television series Forbrydelsen is representative of the successful intertwining of local narratives with transnational media within the scenario of contemporary Nordic Noir. This paper considers the series’ stylistic and production values to show how a “medium-concept” narrative, with its hybridization of genres, portrays highly debated social issues and raises a nationwide public discourse on them. The mingling of genres (melodrama and noir, sensational and crime fiction, and so on) produces a complex narrative that revolves around the wounded body and psyche of the female detective. The melodramatic mode of representation generates a dystopic vision of the contemporary world, visually depicting violent clashes between the individual and the agents of power, and the morally ambiguous compromises such clashes create for the nation.
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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Melodrama, Identity, and Community in Forbrydelsen
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Ilaria A. De Pascalis
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Melodrama, Identity, and Community in Forbrydelsen
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Melodrama, Identity, and Community in Forbrydelsen
Ilaria A. De Pascalis, Università degli Studi Roma Tre




Abstract

   The Danish television series Forbrydelsen is representative of the successful in-
   tertwining of local narratives with transnational media within the scenario of
   contemporary Nordic Noir. This paper considers the series’ stylistic and produc-
   tion values to show how a “medium-concept” narrative, with its hybridization
   of genres, portrays highly debated social issues and raises a nationwide public
   discourse on them. The mingling of genres (melodrama and noir, sensational
   and crime fiction, and so on) produces a complex narrative that revolves around
   the wounded body and psyche of the female detective. The melodramatic mode
   of representation generates a dystopic vision of the contemporary world, visually
   depicting violent clashes between the individual and the agents of power, and
   the morally ambiguous compromises such clashes create for the nation.


   The television drama has increasingly attracted audiences and actively con-
tributed in defining this medium’s contemporary aesthetics and narrative sce-
narios. The television series is one of its most popular products, globally es-
tablishing the standard for hegemonic narratives and fantasies. It is able to
cross the boundaries usually defined by national markets and travel along new
cultural flows. This essay will consider the specific case of the Danish series
Forbrydelsen/The Killing (DR, 2007-), whose success will be considered as rep-
resentative of the necessary intertwining of local narratives and transnational
media. As a product of Danish public service broadcasting, it has to address
relevant issues for a lively national discourse, e.g. the intertwining of politi-
cal and economic powers, gendered positions and trajectories, the opposition
between justice and revenge, etc. Its stylistic choices, complex narrative, and
problematic representation of the main character, Sarah Lund (Sofie Gråbøl),
will therefore be analyzed, as these elements propose a specific interpretation
of Danish public discourse and are part of Nordic Noir as a whole, contribut-
ing to its global impact.
   This brand, known by various names across Europe (Nordicana, Scando-noir,


                                                Cinéma & Cie, vol. XV, no. 24, Spring 2015
                                        Ilaria A. De Pascalis


Polar Polaire, Schwedenkrimi, etc.),1 is deeply related to the prevailing narratives
and aesthetics of American film noir, from its birth in the 1940s up to its recent
iterations in film and television. In Forbrydelsen, this relationship is particularly
evident in the choices of location and lightning, with its preference for urban
landscapes immersed in rainy autumn weather and the dominance of blue and
gray light. However, Nordic Noir can also be considered in light of some reflec-
tions on classical Hollywood noirs and gangster films.2
   An important renovation in the Nordic iteration of noir is the significance
accorded the female body as the melodramatic expression of pathos, evinc-
ing a specific declination of the sensational. These narratives are grounded on
the intensified representation of bodily experiences, with specific attention to
gendered violence.3 Beyond Forbrydelsen, consider Lisbeth Salander (Noomi
Rapace) in the Millennium trilogy (Niels Arden Oplev and Daniel Alfredson,
2009) or Katrine Ries Jensen (Laura Bach) in Der som dræber/Those Who Kill
(TV2, 2011), both of whom react to several physical and mental traumas; like-
wise, there is the detached, challenging behavior of Saga Norén (Sofia Helin)
in Brön/Brœn (DR-SVT, 2011-). These characters participate in the creation of
complex genre relations, where detection is disturbed by intense private emo-
tions, sexual desire distracts women from their investigations, and the thriller
genre superimposes to narratives of familial grief.
   Contemporary narratives intertwine the genres mixing with a multiplication
of storylines and the extension of narrative arcs; sometimes, they even spread
throughout the wide transmedia environment dominating the entertainment
industries. However, they still reach most of their users by the means of the
traditional television broadcasting, therefore negotiating their complexities with
audiences still accustomed to the use of conventional narrative genres and forms.
In particular, they play with audience expectations of thrillers, polarizing the
central contradiction between institutions and individuals, and emphasizing the
private suffering caused by the blindness of social organizations. The main fe-
male characters in these series are associated with national institutions, either
by trying to escape from their control (Lisbeth) or actually belonging to them
(Katrine, Saga, and Sarah are policewomen); as such, their bodies become ex-
pressions of the transit between public and private discourse in Denmark. While
the characters are rooted in a specific location, they are also part of the cultural



1
  Olof Hedling, “Notes on Nordic Noir as European Popular Culture,” in Frames Cinema Journal,
MondoPop: Rethinking Genre Beyond Hollywood, no. 6, 2014, pp. 201-214, http://framescinema-
journal.com/article/notes-on-nordic-noir-as-european-popular-culture/, last visit 5 February 2015.
2
  For example, Nestingen analyzes the transition from social bonds to individualism in Nordic
public discourse as a transgression of the law, using Robert Warshow’s 1948 analysis of the gang-
ster film; Andrew Nestingen, Crime and Fantasy in Scandinavia: Fiction, Film, and Social Change,
University of Washington Press, Seattle 2008, pp. 79-80.
3
  For the relations of melodrama and sensationalism in visual narrative, see Ben Singer, Melodrama and
Modernity: Early Sensational Cinema and Its Contexts, Columbia University Press, New York 2001.

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flow dominating the global scenario, especially considering that all of them have
counterparts in the adaptations of these series produced in the United States.4


Transnational impact and trans-genre narrative

   The migration of these stories across the Atlantic comprises a strong argument in
favor of a global interpretation of their narrative and stylistic issues. That said, I wish
to focus on the intra-European circulation of the ‘original’ series, produced in the
context of a “small nation,”5 yet disseminated in many other markets with different
economic impacts in each case. Comprising a shift from the idea of an international
market to a transnational dissemination of content, these series serve as examples
of certain changes in the global media economy that have emerged in recent years.6
   In the case of the Nordic Noirs, the television series are intended for trans-
national markets from the very beginning: they are often coproduced by several
European companies and are part of the wider distribution of popular products
all over Europe. For instance, Forbrydelsen is produced by the Danish DR, with
the participation of the Swedish SVT, German ZDF, and Norwegian NRK. This
transnational economic effort creates a wide network, which allows the series to
be sold to many other countries. Moreover, the convergence of different narra-
tive and production traditions stimulates the creation of stories that can attract
different audiences and engage them at various levels. The proliferation of char-
acters and of their possible relations can be read through this lens, as it enlarges
the possibilities for identification and emotional involvement. Great importance
is accorded to diegetic expansion, generating wide “story worlds” that replicate
the multiplicity of the audience’s everyday experiences.7 The intertwining of dif-
ferent genres in particular produces an investment in a metadiegetic, transmedia
universe, where the “constellated communities” theorized by Altman8 for film
genres are increasingly part of a circuit revolving around multiple interests.

4
  In the US versions, Lisbeth Salander is interpreted by Rooney Mara in The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo (David Fincher, 2011); Katrine becomes Catherine Jensen (Chloë Sevigny), a member of the
Pittsburgh Police Department in Those Who Kill (Fox, 2014-); Saga translates as Sonya Cross (Diane
Kruger) in The Bridge (FX, 2013-), set on the US-Mexico border; and Mireille Enos plays Sarah
Linden, a Seattle police detective in The Killing (AMC, 2011-). The Bridge was also adapted as The
Tunnel in 2013, a coproduction between Canal+ in France and Sky Atlantic in the UK, set in Folke-
stone and Calais, with the French actress Clémence Poésy playing the detective Elise Wasserman.
5
  The definition of Denmark as a “small nation” in terms of its film and media production has been
developed by Mette Hjort, Small Nation, Global Cinema: The New Danish Cinema, University of
Minnesota Press, Minneapolis-London 2005.
6
  Jean K. Chalaby, “From Internationalization to Transnationalization,” in Global Media and
Communication, vol. 1, no. 1, 2005, p. 30.
7
  Jeffrey Sconce, What If? Charting Television’s New Textual Boundaries, in Lynn Spigel, Jan
Olsson (eds.), Television after TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition, Duke University Press,
Durham-London 2004, pp. 93-112.
8
  Constellated communities “cohere only through repeated acts of imagination;” Rick Altman,
Film/Genre, BFI, London 1999, p. 161.

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                                          Ilaria A. De Pascalis


   Such a complexity of interests and narrative scenarios was part of the concept
of Forbrydelsen from the beginning. It had to not only respond to global changes
in television storytelling but also adapt to DR “dogma.” The Danish broadcaster
relies on the idea that its duty is to tell “stories that are not only entertaining
but which also contain larger ethical and social connotations.”9 The main crime
story in each season of Forbrydelsen is therefore mingled with political drama,
the grief of the victims’ families, the roles and responsibilities of state institu-
tions, economic crisis, and so forth. Each storyline is geographically and cultur-
ally situated, addressing an issue considered sensitive in Danish public discourse;
however, these issues are also part of a wider discursive formation, shaping the
transnational cultural citizenship generated by contemporary global media.10
   Crime fiction is particularly apt to respond to the interfacing between genres
as conceptual categories and the circulation of public discourses they produce.11
It originated in modern, urban societies as an instrument to correctly interpret
the world and organize its chaos;12 however, it also presents the possibility of
delving into ‘immoral’ behaviors since it continuously depicts the violation of
laws and norms.13 The Nordic variant of noir is always attentive to the social
and political implications of crime narratives, highlighting the complex conse-
quences of each act, whether publicly allowed or prohibited.14 The DR’s “double
storytelling” rule is part of a wider set of genre norms and conventions that tries
to depict the multiplicity of everyday life.
   This “double storytelling” played an active role in the development of
Forbrydelsen, as its creator, Søren Sveistrup, completely rethought his original
concept of a miniseries in eight episodes about the murder of a young girl. He
extended the storylines to produce a longer series with more narrative paths,
inspired by the idea of the butterfly effect in chaos theory as a diegetic structure
for a “tale of destinies.”15 The thriller is, therefore, just one of several genres used


9
   Eva Novrup Redvall, “‘Dogmas’ for Television Drama: The Ideas of ‘One Vision,’ ‘Double Sto-
rytelling,’ ‘Crossover,’ and ‘Producer’s Choice’ in Drama Series from the Danish Public Service
Broadcaster DR,” in Journal of Popular Television, vol. 1, no. 2, 2013, p. 230.
10
   Joke Hermes, Re-Reading Popular Culture, Blackwell, Oxford 2005.
11
   Jason Mittell, Genre and Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture, Routledge,
New York-London 2004, pp. 12-13.
12
   Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Meaningless Icelanders: Icelandic Crime Fiction and Nationality, in Andrew Nestin-
gen, Paula Arvas (eds.), Scandinavian Crime Fiction, University of Wales Press, Cardiff 2011, p. 48.
13
   Torben Grodal, “Crime Fiction and Moral Emotions: How Context Lures the Moral Attitudes of
Viewers and Readers,” in Northern Lights, vol. 9, 2011, pp. 144-145. The readability of the world
granted by crime fiction has been pivotal for the Italian media studies debate on contemporary
television narrative; see the round table “La nuova serialità televisiva. Tavola rotonda sulle nuove
forme di serialità televisiva e sulla questione di un nuovo approccio critico,” in Cinergie, no. 13,
March 2007, pp. 4-5.
14
    Barry Forshaw, Death in a Cold Climate: A Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction, Palgrave
Macmillan, Basingstoke 2012.
15
   Eva Novrup Redvall, “‘Dogmas’ for Television Drama: The Ideas of ‘One Vision,’ ‘Double Sto-
rytelling,’ ‘Crossover,’ and ‘Producer’s Choice’ in Drama Series from the Danish Public Service
Broadcaster DR,” cit., p. 230.

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                     Melodrama, Identity and Community in Forbrydelsen


to construct the narrative path of the series. Suspense, the detection and pursuit
of the villain, and the “dialectical relationship and the contrast between the calm
and collected exterior and the underlying abyss of calculation and instinct”16 are
only portions of a wider plot. Political drama and melodrama, with their specific
affective qualities, also play significant roles in audience engagement.


Narrative complexities: echoing Twin Peaks

   With its wide narrative arc, it took a whole year and 20 episodes to discover
the killer of Nanna Birk Larsen in the first season of Forbrydelsen (originally
aired January to March, and then September to November 2007). The second
and third seasons consisted of 10 episodes each, aired in Denmark from Septem-
ber to November in 2009 and 2012, respectively. The ability to trace the conse-
quences of characters’ actions within an extended temporal arc, not limited to a
one-hour episode, produces, on the one hand, a narrative anchored by emotional
peaks or situations; on the other, it permits the development of multifaceted
characters constructed through tortuous affective paths.17
   This kind of narrative structure, along with the murder of a teenager, which
constitutes the starting point of the series, echoes one of the first complex televi-
sion narratives: Twin Peaks, the two-season television serial created by David
Lynch and Mark Frost, originally broadcast from April 1990 to June 1991. The
show can be defined as a serial rather than a series: a series is characterized by
self-contained episodes while a serial creates an ongoing narrative, often con-
nected by cliffhangers at the end of each episode.18 In contemporary television,
however, the distinction between series and serial is increasingly blurred: in the
proliferation of storylines with complex narratives, each can be quickly eradicat-
ed, completely transformed, or even renewed after being considered exhausted,
thus maintaining the “ecological” health of the narrative world.19
   The connection between Forbrydelsen and Twin Peaks also includes the “Nor-
dic” setting, as the latter was set in cold, rainy Washington State in the United
States. Moreover, Forbrydelsen’s advertising campaign was initially based on the
question, “Who killed Nanna Birk Larsen?” echoing Twin Peaks’s “Who killed

16
   Gunhild Agger, “Nordic Noir on Television: The Killing I-III,” in Cinéma&Cie, vol. 12, no. 19,
Fall 2012, p. 42.
17
   Regarding multilayered narrative in the television serial and the revolution introduced by
Twin Peaks, see Kristin Thompson, Storytelling in Film and Television, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge-London 2003, p. 133.
18
   John Ellis, Visible Fictions. Cinema, Television, Video, Routledge, London 1982, quoted in
Veronica Innocenti, Guglielmo Pescatore (eds.), Le nuove forme della serialità televisiva. Storia,
linguaggio, temi, Archetipolibri, Bologna 2008, p. 18.
19
   For
   ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
       an introduction to “ecology” in media studies, see Claudio Bisoni, Veronica Innocenti, Gu-
                                                                                               ���
glielmo Pescatore, Il concetto di ecosistema e i media studies: un’introduzione, in Claudio Bisoni,
Veronica Innocenti (eds.), Media Mutations. Gli ecosistemi narrativi nello scenario mediale contem-
poraneo. Spazi, modelli, usi sociali, Mucchi, Bologna 2013, pp. 11-26.

                                                                                               123
                                       Ilaria A. De Pascalis


Laura Palmer?” Finally, the closing credits of each episode of Forbrydelsen made
an explicit visual reference to Twin Peaks by zooming out from a closeup of the
murdered girl, replicating the famous snapshot of Laura Palmer. In Twin Peaks,
however, the camera’s starting point for the closing credits was a framed picture
of the teenager as prom queen; in Forbrydelsen, there is just an unframed, unsat-
urated closeup of Nanna fading in from the black. In this way, the Danish thriller
emphasizes the lack — or at least the weakening — of social and cultural codes.
At the same time, the murder is completely rooted in the phenomenal, physical
world, unlike the metaphysical, mysterious developments of Twin Peaks.
   One of the main differences between the two shows concerns their respective
production contexts: Twin Peaks is an “authorial” product from the early 1990s
that was later labeled “quality television,”20 while Forbrydelsen is explicitly part
of the “medium-concept” style proposed by Andrew Nestingen for contempo-
rary Nordic Noir. In his definition, these filmic and television products “use the
dramaturgical structures and continuity style of genre film and the excess char-
acteristic of the art film;” moreover, such excess is used to direct the audience’s
attention toward “extrafilmic, sometimes politically significant, issues.”21 In this
sense, great importance is attached to the resonances between visual style and
narrative themes. For example, the inability to see clearly through rain and mud
becomes a metaphor for the inability to sort innocence from guilt, truth from
falsehood. Moreover, the truth about the murders, eventually discovered by Sa-
rah Lund, is always shattering, elusive, and ambiguous.
   As with previous complex narratives, the multiplicity of issues, themes, and
questions raised by the narrative of Forbrydelsen is controlled through visual
and stylistic homogeneity. In this sense, Twin Peaks was one of the first series to
mingle soap opera-like parallel storylines and the sensationalism of bodily ex-
cess with other, more “respectable” genres — such as noir, crime, and American
gothic — creating a sense of unity through highly competent camerawork, edit-
ing, and music.22 Forbrydelsen, however, is one prominent product among many


20
   For the author as a “brand label of quality and exclusivity,” see Janet McCabe, Kim Akass, Intro-
duction, in Id., Quality TV: Contemporary American Television and Beyond, I.B. Tauris, London-
New York 2007, p. 10. On a similar note, see also Máire Messenger Davies, Quality and Creativity
in TV: The Work of Television Storytellers, in the same anthology, pp. 171-184. Thompson goes as
far as considering Twin Peaks “art television”: Kristin Thompson, Storytelling in Film and Televi-
sion, cit., pp. 106-140.
21
   Andrew Nestingen, Crime and Fantasy in Scandinavia: Fiction, Film, and Social Change, cit.,
p. 73. For the idea of “medium concept,” see also Pia Majbritt Jensen, Anne Marit Waade,
“Nordic Noir Challenging ‘The Language of Advantage’: Setting, Light, and Language as
Production Values in Danish Television Series,” in Journal of Popular Television, vol. 1, no. 2,
2013, pp. 259-265.
22
   For such a wide definition of “quality television,” see Sarah Cadwell, Is Quality Television Any
Good? Generic Distinctions, Evaluations and the Troubling Matter of Critical Judgement, in Janet
McCabe, Kim Akass (eds.), Quality TV: Contemporary American Television and Beyond, cit., p. 26.
For the multiplicity of narrative genres proposed by Twin Peaks, see the special issue dedicated to
the serial in Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 4, Fall 1993.

124
                    Melodrama, Identity and Community in Forbrydelsen


in an ongoing sharing of complex narratives that has taken place between the
United States and Europe over the last 15-20 years. The “Søren Sveistrup thrill-
er,” therefore, uses crime fiction conventions, an authorial mood established by
DR dogma regarding the “one vision,”23 and mixed genres, all of which accounts
for much of the series’ worldwide success.24


Between melodrama and detection: prolific hybridizations

   The moral ambiguity of the contemporary world, the inexplicableness of its
cultural patterns, and the ongoing battle between legality and illegality are at
the core of Forbrydelsen’s narratives and investigations. They find an original
expression in the stylistic dual focus that characterizes the series. On the one
hand, there is a logical path concerning the solving of the crime, in line with the
visual conventions of noir; on the other, the series is punctuated by emotional
eruptions, which openly menace the detection process and lead to visual excess.
One example of this dialectic occurs in the middle of the first season: a possi-
ble breakdown in the investigation results in the horrific and prolonged beating
of the suspect (a Muslim teacher), conducted at the beginning of episode 9 by
Nanna’s father, Theis, and his friend Vagn (the actual murderer). Much of this
episode is dedicated to the terrible act and its consequences for the Birk Larsens,
even though this situation will have no further role in the detection.
   The emotional outburst leading Nanna’s father toward revenge is just one of
many affective peaks punctuating the narrative, also expressed through the tra-
jectory of Sarah Lund’s character. Over the course of the three seasons, she re-
peatedly becomes obsessed with certain clues and suspects, much like other de-
tectives in the crime fiction tradition. However, she is repeatedly proven wrong,
and her errors have terrible consequences (e.g., the murder of her partner Meyer
in the first season, the alleged murder of little Emilie in the third). Within her
body, we find the representation of state institutions (she is a trained detective),
the inappropriateness of her emerging desires (she is often involved with mar-
ried or otherwise problematic men), and her refusal to recognize feelings and
emotions lurking just beneath the surface. In this sense, Sarah is representative
of many other Nordic detectives, with a dark outcome produced by the dystopic,
neoliberal setting of contemporary Denmark.25
   The dialectic Sarah embodies — between the logic of detection and the power


23
   Eva Novrup Redvall, “‘Dogmas’ for Television Drama,” cit. The credit “A Søren Sveistrup’s
thriller” appears at the beginning of each episode.
24
   Forbrydelsen has been aired in many countries — Germany, Japan, UK, Australia, Poland,
Brazil, and others. Most data about its broadcasting are available on the English Wikipedia page
dedicated to the series: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_(Danish_TV_series), last visit
16 February 2015.
25
   Karen Klitgaard Povlsen, Gender and Geography in Contemporary Scandinavian Television Crime
Fiction, in Andrew Nestingen, Paula Arvas (eds.), Scandinavian Crime Fiction, cit., pp. 89-99.

                                                                                            125
                                     Ilaria A. De Pascalis


of emotion — weakens as the series progresses in favor of sensational and melo-
dramatic outbursts. This trajectory is expressed through the lighting style of the se-
ries: Sarah is often framed using backlights, which seem to create strong contrasts
between light and shadow while actually blurring the boundaries between visible
and invisible. Backlighting is especially used during emotional moments (affective
confrontations between characters, hunting for the killer in dangerous settings,
etc.), underlining the illegibility of the characters’ motives and trajectories. Sarah
displays incoherent behavior in both her private and professional life: in the first
season, the audience never learns why she is obsessed with the case to the point
that she renounces her fiancé and then her son. In the same way, we never com-
pletely understand her motives for pursuing some clues and not others, what her
mental associations are, or what deduction processes lead her to repeatedly pursue
the wrong men (at least six times in the first ten episodes). In the end, we can no
longer completely trust her abilities as a detective or her capacity to read the world
at large. Such doubt is confirmed at the end of the third season when Sarah trans-
forms from detective to avenger, from police officer to executioner.
   The dominance of melodramatic rhetoric in Forbrydelsen replicates, in the
context of 21st century television, the emergence of melodramatic imagination in
the theater and novels of the 18th century. For Peter Brooks, the excess pathos
and moral radicalization of such novels and theatre gave new shape to spiritual
values, which had become fragmented and desacralized in the modern world.
“The melodramatic mode,” he writes, “exists to locate and to articulate the mor-
al occult.”26 However, in the 18th century the clashing of moral forces translated
into a radicalization of the possible positions and an “incessant struggle against
enemies […] branded as villains, suborners of morality.”27 In contemporary soci-
ety, the changed paradigm denies the possibility of a unique interpretation of the
world, and the transcendent struggle between good and evil cannot take place.
Goodness is nowhere to be found — in neither the family nor the state — in a
world dominated by neoliberal greed and individualistic desires, and crime fic-
tion is the perfect expression of such a dystopia.
   The prevalence of a “hyperbolic mode”28 of representation — dark shots, the
heavy use of blue filters, frantic camera movement, labyrinthine settings — visu-
ally translates the impossibility of attaining a definitive truth, and flourishing
emotions dominate the characters. At the narrative level, the melodramatic flavor
affects the investment in multiple storylines, sometimes only weakly related to
the murder. As Melanie Kohnen notes in her analysis of the first season of the
American version (whose plot is pretty similar to that of the Danish version), The
Killing “prioritizes melodramatic moments over constructing a linear narrative



26
   Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of
Excess, Yale University Press, New Haven-London 1976, p. 5.
27
   Ivi, p. 15.
28
   Ivi, p. 9.

126
                     Melodrama, Identity and Community in Forbrydelsen


that leads to a definite ending, i.e. the revelation of Rosie’s murderer.”29 Moreo-
ver, the deferred solution — evident in the longer first season — demonstrates
that The Killing’s (and Forbrydelsen’s) narrative is strictly related to the delayed
rhythm of the soap opera.30
   With its melodramatic mode, Forbrydelsen participates in the ongoing
disruption of the dichotomy between “primetime soap,” made for a female
audience and “marked by stylistic excess and trashy sensibility,” and “quality
drama,” masculine in focus and appeal and considered “serious, socially engaged,
and more aesthetically mature,” as noted by Jason Mittell.31 Contemporary
television serials are generated through a constant hybridization of these
oppositions and foster strong emotional engagement, yet they still present
“characters as social and political actors, as players within a larger scheme,
not just as emotional individuals.”32 Interestingly, Mittell suggests that The
Killing (the American version) actually fails to maintain the audience’s interest
in the proliferating storylines and characters. He believes that not revealing the
murderer’s identity in the season finale fails to meet the expectations created by
the paratextual promotion surrounding the suggestive question, “Who Killed
Rosie Larsen?”33


The wounded body of the nation

   However, in the Danish broadcast of Forbrydelsen, there was only a minor
drop in viewership between the end of the first half of the first season in March
and its reprise in September, which recovered after few episodes.34 This shows
that the audience found the multiple storylines absorbing and participated in the
characters’ emotions as well as the public discourse surrounding the events. The
series assigns great importance to the preservation of social structures and the


29
   Melanie E. S. Kohnen, “‘This Was Just a Melodramatic Crapfest:’ American TV Critics’ Recep-
tion of The Killing,” in Journal of Popular Television, vol. 1, no. 2, 2013, p. 271.
30
   Kristen Warner, Lisa Schmidt, “Reconsidering The Killing as Feminine Narrative Form,” in
Flow, vol. 14, no. 3, 2011, http://flowtv.org/2011/07/reconsidering-the-killing/, last visit 15 Feb-
ruary 2015.
31
   Jason Mittell, Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling, New York
University Press, New York 2015. A draft for peer review is available at http://mcpress.media-
commons.org/complextelevision/, last visit 16 February 2015. My quotes are from the chapter
“Serial Melodrama,” par. 22.
32
   Sarah Cadwell, Is Quality Television Any Good? Generic Distinctions, Evaluations and the
Troubling Matter of Critical Judgement, cit., p. 27.
33
    Jason Mittell, “Killing Surprises,” in Just TV, 20 June 2011, https://justtv.wordpress.
com/2011/06/20/killing-surprises/, last visit 15 February 2015.
34
   Episode 10 had 1,678,000 viewers for its first airing in March 2007; episode 11 (aired on 23 Sep-
tember) only had 1,371,000, but the number constantly grew during the second part of the season,
reaching 2,107,000 viewers for the season finale on 29 November. Data collected by TNS Gallup
and published on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_(Danish_TV_series)#Episodes_and_
ratings, last visit 16 February 2015.

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                                      Ilaria A. De Pascalis


private and public articulation of communities (i.e., the family on the one side
and governments and institutions on the other). The relevance attached to emo-
tion, and its role in community construction, produces a collective reflection on
morality and ethics, reproducing Brooks’ paradigm for melodramatic imagina-
tion. According to Nestingen, in Nordic Noir “we often find an individual officer
whose depiction thematizes, dramatizes and heightens the conflicts in the novel,
soliciting moral judgement about the characters and the conflicts narrated” be-
cause “melodramatic narration well suits the project of contesting the morality
of the welfare state’s transformation under neoliberalism.”35
   The series’ stylistic excess and the melodramatic body of the main charac-
ter are used as instruments to portray the problems produced by neoliberalism
and globalization in the social-democratic Northern countries. The wounds on
the officer’s body are inflicted on the body of the Nation.36 This is particularly
evident in the finale of the second season when the (deviant) agent of the army
secret service almost kills Sarah Lund, after they had been in love and partners
in the investigation for many episodes. The representative of the national military
power thus tries to eradicate its civil counterpart, and to concentrate all the deci-
sion power in the hands of the army. Finally, in the third season, it is Sarah who
loses control of her body. She is sexually and romantically involved with another
officer (already married), and in the last episode she executes the killer because
he will never be prosecuted. Her character becomes increasingly involved with
her obsessions, and the frantic effort to solve the crime becomes a failed attempt
to unravel her own tortured emotions.
   Her hunt for the killers in each season translates visually into a constant and
almost pointless movement across Copenhagen and its neighborhoods. As the
series proceeds, the opposition is no longer between the family home and the
palaces of power, as could be supposed in the first episodes. Quite the opposite,
Forbrydelsen represents “the collapse and even lack of homes and the invalida-
tion of the families.”37 The intertwining of police procedural with political thriller
and melodrama produces an opposition between the body of the detective and
the city, between her emotions and the network of lies and intrigue enveloping
those in charge of the city (or even the nation). Even if the mayor or prime minis-
ter are not actually involved in the murders, they — and all other politicians and
economic tycoons — are morally responsible for the ambiguous compromises
and are always guilty of unethical behavior.
   At both a visual and narrative level, Forbrydelsen strictly links public and pri-
vate. While it makes evident the “nationalization of the domestic and the do-

35
   Andrew Nestingen, Unnecessary Officers: Realism, Melodrama and Scandinavian Crime Fiction
in Transition, in Andrew Nestingen, Paula Arvas (eds.), Scandinavian Crime Fiction, cit., p. 172.
36
   For the body in melodrama, see Peter Brooks, Melodrama, Body, Revolution, in Jacqueline S.
Bratton, Jim Cook, Christine Gledhill (eds.), Melodrama: Stage, Picture, Screen, BFI, London 1994,
pp. 11-24.
37
   Gunhild Agger, “Emotion, Gender, and Genre: Investigating The Killing,” in Northern Lights,
vol. 9, 2011, p. 120.

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                     Melodrama, Identity and Community in Forbrydelsen


mestication of the national” that is at stake with television,38 it also shows its per-
verted aspects. The DR interprets its “public service” mission not as a national
pacifier, but as an instrument to produce lively public debate on problematic
issues involving every aspect of contemporary power relations — from actual
politics to economic globalization, from crime to gender issues, and so on.39 The
ambiguity of the public scene is aptly expressed by Forbrydelsen’s multiple set-
tings, each precisely located on the city map. The creative use of locations pro-
duces a specific “combination of a precision in place, and a symbolic loading
of space,”40 which conveys the constant relations between the private-particular
and the public-universal already individuated in the representation of Sarah’s
body and in the broader visual melodrama.

   In conclusion, every level of Forbrydelsen is involved in a complex hybridiza-
tion of narrative genres and modes of representation, creating a multilayered
visualization of contemporary communities in Copenhagen. The main charac-
ter burdens herself with the most tragic obsessions crossing the global society,
and her body becomes a synecdoche for the whole nation, put in constant
danger by other representatives of power, who are more or less deviant. The
melodramatic mode of representation produces, therefore, a visualization of
the moral and cultural clashes that dominate both public and private spaces,
and the solutions to the crimes are always problematic and uncertain. For-
brydelsen’s success across several countries is attributable to its ability to relate
visual complexity and excess with a multilayered narrative, the individual with
the community, and the local with the global.




38
   David Morley, At Home with Television, in Lynn Spigel, Jan Olsson (eds.), Television after TV:
Essays on a Medium in Transition, cit., p. 312.
39
   See the 2013 statement from DR cultural director Morten Hesseldahl concerning the political
drama Borgen: “And yes, of course it is great that DR’s dramas have ambitions to influence the
Danes. Influence them to participate in the public debates. Influence them to engage with soci-
ety’s challenges. Influence them to think for themselves by putting relevant issues on the agenda.
This has certainly always been our ambition. And not to provide glossy entertainment;” quoted
in Tobias Hochscherf, Heidi Philipsen, “Speaking for and to the Nation? Borgen and the Cul-
tural Viability of Public Service Broadcasting in Denmark and Germany,” in Journal of Popular
Television, vol. 1, no. 2, 2013, p. 247.
40
   Gunhild Agger, “The Killing: Urban Topographies of a Crime,” in Journal of Popular Television,
vol. 1, no. 2, 2013, p. 236.

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