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PART TWO: IDENTITIES, BORDERS, AND MEDIATIONS

In True Hollywood Style? Localized Emulations of American Genre Film in Contemporary Swedish Cinema

Joel Frykholm

Abstract

This essay explores a selection of Swedish feature films that were made with the explicit intention of emulating elements and conventions associated with American action, thriller, disaster, sci-fi, and horror films. Via case studies of Angry (Yohanna Idha and Christopher Schönning, 2010), Operation Ragnarök (Fredrik Hiller, 2018) and The Unthinkable (Den blomstertid nu kommer, Crazy Pictures, 2018), the article address how the intention to draw on American cinema informed production processes and marketing, how these films combined ostensibly American genre elements with local features, and how the resulting Swedish-American hybrids were received by critics. The analysis emphasizes the heterogeneity of films, filmmaking practices, and conditions of production—genre filmmaking in Sweden is often hampered by financial constraints and institutional obstacles, but there are also opportunities to break through, and the general trend is toward a mainstreaming of genre films in a national cinema that has historically been strongly associated with art films and social realism. A shift along such lines is also evident in the critical discourse, which displays an increasingly generous attitude toward genre filmmaking, nourished by hopes that such films will revitalize Swedish cinema. This implies a recalibration of the relationship between the national cinema and Hollywood’s commercial mass culture, which no longer necessarily functions as an a priori bad Other to oppose, repress, or resist.

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1. Introduction

1Why do Swedish critics and audiences (mis)recognize certain film genres as quintessentially American? What happens when Swedish filmmakers venture into ostensibly American genre territories? What dynamics of cross-cultural exchange and negotiation are set in motion? This article approaches these questions by way of analyzing a selection of contemporary Swedish feature films that were either explicitly made or widely perceived to emulate “American” conventions and standards set within the genres of horror, action, and disaster film.

2Historically, such Swedish films have represented a critically neglected and much maligned category, habitually dismissed as cheap, derivative, and bereft of artistic value—inferior copies of an American original that is already held to be a bad “Other” vis-a-vis the national cinema. However, beyond such a limited imagination concerning the national cinema, one finds a diverse range of films, filmmakers, and filmmaking practices—from low budget trash and cult formats and “so bad it’s good” movies to relatively conventional action pictures that turned out to have strong popular appeal. The article zooms in on three examples that taken together illustrate the diversity I am speaking of: Angry (Yohanna Idha and Christopher Schönning, 2010), Operation Ragnarök (Fredrik Hiller, 2018), and The Unthinkable (Den blomstertid nu kommer, Crazy Pictures, 2018). What ostensibly American characteristics inform the approach to style, narrative, genre, and marketing in these cases? How are such elements combined with local flavor? What cross-cultural flows and transnational networks—including but not limited to Swedish-American connections—define and shape the paths of circulation for these films? In answering these questions, this article aims to account for the status of genre filmmaking in Swedish cinema today, paying particular attention to how this strand within the national cinema is shaped in dynamic interaction with American cinema.

3I regard this as a contribution to the research area Blanck and Hjorthén have termed “Swedish-American Borderlands” (1–42). Popular culture—including cinema—has not been a main concern within that field, so there are gaps to fill, not least in light of the crucial role that popular culture plays as a node of contact between Sweden and the U.S. As far as cinematic Swedish-American borderlands go, there are numerous valuable historical studies (see Björk; Björkin; Gustafsson, En fiende; Olsson, “National Soul”; Olsson, Life), but fewer on contemporary Swedish cinema and the questions concerning artistic influence, critical reception, and changing production cultures that my three case studies explore.

4If the notion of “Swedish-American Borderlands” offers a general guiding light, specific perspectives and approaches have been picked up from previous research on Nordic genre and exploitation film. I owe a particularly great debt to Gustafsson and Kääpä’s work (“Introduction”; Politics). For one, my analysis dovetails with the larger historical narrative Gustafsson and Kääpä provide, according to which genre films in the Nordic countries have gradually acquired increasingly greater cultural legitimacy and increasingly favorable production conditions, even though some of the officially “sanctioned aversion” (Politics 18–19; Gustafsson, “Slasher” 189) against horror and exploitation persists and even though some films within such genres are still culturally contested (“Introduction” 1–17). Secondly, I deploy many of the same approaches and analytical frameworks as Gustafsson and Kääpä. This includes: (a) the use of a diverse mix of empirical material, which allows for a combination of film analysis and analysis of institutional conditions and contexts of production, circulation, and reception (Politics 21–22); (b) analysis of the dynamics between genre filmmaking and normative ideas about the national cinema (Politics 1–2, passim; “Introduction” 1–4); and (c) tracing the interplay between transnational genre systems on the one hand and national production conditions and film markets on the other (Politics, passim).

5The above should give an idea of the article’s basic approach and perspectives, but there are a number of conceptual and historiographical questions left unanswered—I will address some of those in a background section that precedes the three case studies. These, in turn, move from the outermost peripheries of Swedish cinema (Angry) via an independent middle-zone (Operation Ragnarök) to an amalgamation of indie and mainstream (The Unthinkable). It is difficult to accomplish perfect analytical consistency, but to varying degrees, all three case studies include: (a) a discussion about institutional conditions and the contexts of production and distribution, paying particular attention to how American genre formats have served as models for these productions; (b) conventional film analysis, focusing on genre aspects and the interfacing of “American” and local elements; (c) a study of the critical reception, especially how issues of genre and American influence are raised in the reviews.

2. Background: Genre Film, National Cinema, and the American Influence on Swedish Film Culture

6In the opening chapter of their book on Nordic exploitation cinema, Gustafsson and Kääpä state that “Nordic cinema holds a distinct international reputation as an austere, artistic, experimental and socially relevant body of enthusiastically serious film culture” and that “popular cinema, especially genre film, was perceived as something unbecoming of appropriate national film culture” (Politics 1; 19). These quotes capture two major strands in the larger argument they are proposing about Nordic exploitation and that they had already made with regard to Nordic genre film in a previous book (Gustafsson and Kääpä “Introduction” 1–30). The first is the implication that the dominant idea about national cinema in a Nordic context obscures the actual diversity of these national film cultures, as evident in the tendency in survey histories and other scholarly works to pay disproportional attention to a limited selection of internationally successful art films and to systematically underestimate the pervasiveness and popularity of genre films (Gustafsson and Kääpä, “Introduction” 1–3). The second is the implication that the bias in favor of art cinema generated institutionally sanctioned barriers against genre filmmaking—at least “pure” genres such as horror (Gustafsson, “Slasher” 189). A main reason is that the state-funded film institutes that were established in the Nordic countries from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s (1963 in the Swedish case) “steered parts of film production towards the production of ‘valuable’ films, that is, art house films and social problem films” and refused to fund “low-brow” films (Gustafsson and Kääpä, “Introduction” 4; Gustafsson, “Slasher” 189). Thus, we must simultaneously acknowledge the central place and the marginalization of genre filmmaking in Sweden.

7The same normative idea of national cinema that Gustafsson and Kääpä describe as anathema to (certain) genre films is also usually assumed to take an oppositional stance toward American cinema, based on the oversimplified and misleading assumption that the serious art cinema that European national cinemas offer is a polar opposite to the commercial mass culture that comes out of Hollywood (cf. Elsaesser 16–17; passim). Similar to how the bias in favor of art cinema and auteur filmmaking that informs this idea of national cinema obscures the relevance of genre in national film culture, it tends to render invisible the deep-seated influence that American cinema has had on nationally based filmmaking practices. Take the example of the so-called “Golden Age” of Swedish silent cinema, a phase of expansion and international success for Swedish cinema lasting approximately from 1917 to 1924. The canonical “golden age” films directed by Victor Sjöström and Mauritz Stiller drew on prestigious literary sources of Nordic origin, highlighted local landscapes in a spectacular manner, and otherwise tapped into what critics in Sweden as well as abroad already at the time perceived to be distinctly Swedish (Florin 31–66). These characteristics led later film historians, including the authors of what is possibly the most widely read survey history of world cinema, to stipulate that “Swedish cinema was recognized as the first major alternative to Hollywood to emerge after the war” (Thompson et al. 56). However, as Olsson has shown, another accomplishment of the “Golden Age” films was the incorporation in Swedish filmmaking of a variety of techniques associated with American cinema, not least an increased use of close-ups, which in turn indicated a more dynamic mode of editing (movements between establishing shots and closer views, alternations of angles and viewpoints, and so on) (Olsson, Life 134–168). Such techniques were associated with what scholars today would refer to as the “classical” Hollywood cinema, which can be described as a set of stylistic and storytelling conventions that work in favor of narrative clarity and coherence—key elements include the clear and logical motivation of cause and effect (predominantly with reference to character psychology), and an approach to mise-en-scène, cinematography and editing that builds and maintains the continuity of time, space, and action throughout the film (Bordwell et al. 12–59, 174–213). According to Olsson, then, the “Golden Age” represented a combination of “classical” Hollywood storytelling and an assortment of elements that added local specificity (Olsson, Life 148).

8Apparently, the “classical” American style that developed in the mid-1910s had global appeal, i.e. it resonated with audiences all over the world, which should have made it an attractive model for non-American filmmakers across the globe to master. In fact, so widely were these storytelling techniques adopted, and so self-evident did these norms become, that their presence is rarely noticed—neither in Swedish “Golden Age” films of yesteryear (until Olsson’s research reminded us) nor in the great number of Swedish narrative feature films today that are designed to meet the standards of a well-made Hollywood film. In this way, they are no longer necessarily seen as “American,” but simply as the common-sense way of making a narrative feature film. As scholars have noted, Hollywood has had remarkable success in “[naturalizing] its construction of the cinema” both with regard to film style and industrial practices throughout most of the world (Crofts 50). Arguably, this is the great story of American cinema’s global influence.

9American influences on film style and aesthetic practices is also deeply connected to Hollywood’s takeover of international film markets around the time of World War I. The major Hollywood corporations’ establishing of far-reaching international distribution networks in this period was crucial (Thompson), but it seems likely that the wide appeal of American films—thanks to their “narrative transparency” (Olson)—is also part of the explanation for Hollywood’s growing dominance from this point onward. In this way, the history of film style and the institutional history of world cinema moved in lockstep. If one path of development had to do with the wide international adoption of the stylistic and narrative norms of Hollywood cinema, a parallel line was the emergence of national cinemas in the 1920s, as a direct response precisely to Hollywood’s global dominance. The well-known national cinemas of this era—French impressionism, German expressionism, and Soviet montage cinema—all self-identified as alternatives to Hollywood (similar to how the Swedish “Golden Age” films had been perceived somewhat earlier). As Gustafsson and Kääpä note, it is still widely assumed that national cinemas “ought to reflect their own uniqueness” (“Introduction” 11). Yet, on account of Hollywood’s long-standing direct and indirect influence on most local film cultures, the “othering” of Hollywood in the construction of national cinemas can only be partial or represent a limited idea of what counts as properly national films. As Elsaesser noted long ago, “Hollywood can hardly be conceived … as totally other, since so much of any nation’s film culture is implicitly ‘Hollywood’”(qtd. in Crofts 50).

10With that said, there are compelling reasons to question both the internal stability and cohesion of “classical” Hollywood cinema and the universality and uniformity of its adoption around the world. Along such lines, Hansen argued in an influential article that conventional accounts of classical Hollywood and its global influence were too totalizing, and too reductive (Hansen 64). Hansen noted that one element that was usually left out was the role of specific genres, including “low genres” such as slapstick comedies, detective thrillers, adventure films, horror, pornography, and melodrama. For Hansen, such non-classical forms represented a different type of Americanism, equally important for a proper explanation of American cinema’s global hegemony (61–62, 71–72). Hansen’s article also forcefully argued that this same story could not be fully understood unless we paid more attention to reception and the peculiarities of local film cultures:

As systematic as the effort to conquer foreign markets undoubtedly was, the actual reception of Hollywood films was likely a much more haphazard and eclectic process depending on a variety of factors. How were the films programmed in the context of local film cultures …? Which genres were preferred in which places … and how were American genres dissolved and assimilated into different generic traditions, different concepts of genre? … To write the international history of classical American cinema, therefore, is a matter of tracing not just its mechanisms of standardization and hegemony but also the diversity of ways in which this cinema was translated and reconfigured in both local and translocal contexts. (69)

11Of course, for any given historical juncture of any given national cinema, the local negotiations that Hansen’s questions speak to are a highly complex, heterogeneous affair. Swedish film culture of the 1920s may serve as a simple illustration. We can stipulate that audience behavior confirms the popularity of American films in Sweden at this time. Among cultural elites and in political circles, however, many people held a highly negative view of American cinema, without too much distinction between different genres. Even the most critical voices recognized a few American motion pictures as major artistic accomplishments, and expressed a reluctant admiration for Hollywood’s craftsmanship and technical prowess, but many regarded American cinema tout court as a corruptive force and threat to the national culture (Frykholm, “Rereading”; Björk 250–254; Björkin 74–79). Meanwhile, domestic producers tried to compete with Hollywood. These efforts included a turn circa 1926 toward international coproductions that speculated in cosmopolitanism, based on hopes of creating an internationally appealing alternative to global Hollywood—all with limited success (Olsson, “National Soul”; Frykholm, “Not-So-Golden Age”). Even so, some of these same Swedish film companies were still profitable, due to the fact that they also distributed motion pictures of American make and owned theaters in which they screened Hollywood movies.

12This example of a local negotiation concerning globalized American cinema hints at the multiplicity of institutions, individuals, discourses, and practices involved. The unpredictability of such processes and the lack of uniform outcomes make generalizations about American cinema’s influence on Swedish film culture hazardous, but as I have tried to suggest in my brief and selective dialog with previous scholarship above, it seems useful to trace the negotiation across two main dimensions, one relating to the local naturalization of globalized American norms and one relating to the othering of Hollywood in the construction of the national cinema. I have also tried to suggest that there is an analogy here between the study of American influence and the study of genre in a Swedish context. The place of genre, too, is subject to a complicated negotiation that involves an assortment of films, discourses and practices that “in many ways defy homogenization under a singular label” (Gustafsson and Käpää, Politics 17–18) and that can be analytically structured around a tension between an (oftentimes) unacknowledged centrality on the one hand and processes of othering and marginalization on the other.

13For the topic of this article, then, a careful enumeration of specific details of the situation at hand is called for, as well as an identification of factors that might be somewhat more significant than others (the power of the Swedish Film Institute to shape Swedish cinema by allocating production funding and otherwise implement the national film policy would be high on this list). A longer historical view is sometimes also necessary to place the case studies in perspective. And seen against the background of this longer view, the case studies that follow will offer evidence of an increasingly accommodating attitude toward Swedish genre films, including those that reveal strong American influence. At least since the international breakthrough of Scandinavian crime fiction in the 1990s, which morphed into what became known as Nordic Noir from 2010 (Hansen and Waade 4–9; Koskinen 199–223), crime films have been key to the identity of Swedish cinema. And, as Gustafsson and Kääpä have shown, popular comedies have long been a lifeblood of Swedish cinema (“Introduction” 2, 11).

14In addition, more marginal genres than crime films and comedies have been subject to critical and historiographical reevaluation in recent years, both as individual genres and as a result of a general upgrading of the status of genre filmmaking in Sweden. Gustafsson and Kääpä write that from the early 2000s, “previously shunned forms of action and horror were viewed much more favorably” (Politics 192). Along similar lines, Furhammar (author of Filmen i Sverige, the standard survey history of Swedish cinema), argued in 2009 that the decade just gone by had seen the final and decisive breakthrough of genre films in Sweden—like never seen before, Swedish filmmakers had ventured into the territories of fantasy and horror, which had previously been “almost taboo” in Sweden, or taken a stab at action, a genre previously viewed as best “left to the Americans” (qtd. In Lundström, “Hasardspel”). Furhammar linked this to a professionalization of the Swedish film industry. Others have talked about a generational shift in the Swedish film industry, thanks to the influx of people who had grown up watching genre films on VHS and cable (Gustafsson and Kääpä, Politics 20, 181; Svenska Filminstitutet, “Starkt uppsving”; Lundström, “Förstör”).

15These developments have been cheered on by an increasing number of prominent film critics who are placing their hopes for a revitalization of Swedish cinema in a better future for genre films. The titles of some such articles indicate that critics believe that the greatest obstacle still standing in the way is the long-standing primacy of art cinema and auteur filmmaking in Swedish film culture (an idea that echoes or even draws explicitly on Gustafsson and Kääpä’s research): “Destroy the quality film!” and “Free us from the masterpieces!” they exclaim (Lundström, “Förstör”; Hyvönen). The case studies that follow will offer illustrations of how Swedish filmmakers in recent years have responded to such calls by unabashedly and deliberately tapping into American genre traditions, in different ways and with different outcomes.

3. Case Studies

3.1 The Case of Angry (2010)

16Angry can be described as a horror film in the tradition of the slasher film and the psychopath killer thriller, while also incorporating elements of relationship drama. The setting is Alaska. A real estate agent called Sandra takes a client out to a remote location to show him a foreclosed property. However, the previous owner appears from out of the woods and, in a state of rage, attacks Sandra and her client with an axe.

17Angry emerged from the outermost margins of Swedish cinema, produced in a semi-amateur, low-budget context that subsists without support from established institutions such as the Swedish Film Institute or any of the regional production centers. The film was written and produced by Jesper Pingo Lindström, who runs his company Penguin Films from the small town of Falun in the Swedish province of Dalarna, a place mostly lacking professional filmmaking infrastructure, and a location where few Swedish films have been made (aside from Maria Blom’s Hallåhallå [2014] and the occasional educational film commissioned by the local cultural history museum—see Mörner 153–168). Lindström’s filmography dates back to the early 2000s, when he was involved in the production of short films in the low-budget exploitation vein. One example is the 22 minute The Werewolf Cult Chronicles: Vietnam 1969 (Paulakoski), shot outside of Karlstad, Värmland, Sweden in 2003 but set in Laos in 1969. The IMDb description gives an indication of what kind of film we are talking about: “Vietnam 1969. Three soldiers are on a secret mission in Skull Bay, north of Laos. Sergeant Jones, Private Maddox and Private Turner shall find and kill a female Vietnamese CIA infiltrator. During the night Sergeant Jones disappears. Something is following the soldiers in the dark. A bloodthirsty werewolf is out for revenge” (Paulakoski). Excerpts from an IMDb user comment headlined “Inspired non-budget lunacy” is also worth citing at some length:

It’s the forests of Sweden in 2003... er, I mean the jungles of Vietnam in 1969 and some dubbed actors have to battle a computer-rendered werewolf. … there is almost no effort to make the men look and behave like real soldiers … The final battle with the animated werewolf though is laughably fake … the choppers and superimposed explosions work pretty well though, and the editing is pretty slick. (Aylmer)

18The next step for Lindström and Penguin Films was the feature-length project that resulted in Angry. Ola Paulakoski, who had directed the werewolf Vietnam film, was enlisted to direct—he was still onboard when a local newspaper reported from the set, but an unsigned trivia entry on IMDb claims that he was “fired from the film when the production choose [sic] to turn the horror film into a drama” after having directed “almost all of the first 40 minutes of the film” (Trivia). The full director credit went to Yohanna Idha and Christopher Schönning (as Christopher Stone), the two lead actors in the film. Idha had acted in the aforementioned short film, and played a number of smaller roles in Swedish TV series and movies running the gamut from ultra-independent to mainstream (“Yohanna Idha”). Her name recognition hit a peak in 2011–2012, i.e. shortly after Angry—she won a best actress award at the Stockholm International Film Festival in 2011 for her role in Certain People (Katinkas kalas, Levan Akin, 2012), and was nominated for a best supporting actress Golden Beetle award in early 2012 for the same role (“Bästa”). Schönning had worked internationally and in Sweden as a stunt performer and (sometimes uncredited) bit player, but lacked real name recognition (“Christopher Schönning”).

19Idha and Schönning paled in comparison to the actor that Lindström managed to cast to play the third major character in the movie: Bo Svenson. Svenson was born in Sweden, but had moved to the United States in his twenties, eventually ending up as an actor in Hollywood. Many (but not all) of his roles from the 1970s onward had been in action B movies and other kinds of independent or low-budget productions, which was exactly what must have made him attractive to the producers of Angry. Even more importantly, Svenson was one of the names on Quentin Tarantino’s list of cult figures from exploitation cinema of the 1970s, which landed Svenson a role in Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (Quentin Tarantino, 2004). Svenson had also played the lead in The Inglorious Bastards (Enzo G. Castellari, 1978), which Tarantino remade as Inglourious Basterds in 2009. Svenson’s old role was played by Brad Pitt in the new version, but Svenson was cast in a minor role, because “history [demanded] it,” as Tarantino supposedly put it to Svenson (“Spotlight”).

20Judging by a local newspaper, Svenson’s stint in Falun was a source of great excitement for the rest of the cast and crew, who saw this as an opportunity to work with an actor of real Hollywood stature (Sandén). Presumably, the producers were banking on Svenson appealing similarly to audiences. Certainly, his presence in the film was potentially a treat to lovers of American straight-to-video genre films, but also attractive to the much larger viewership that had been brought in second-order contact with that tradition via “retrosploitation” à la Tarantino. It was perfectly logical casting, in other words. Still, one cannot help but marvel at the idea that a project of this miniscule scale would bring Svenson back for his first Swedish film in thirty years. Part of the explanation may be found in Svenson’s personal disposition and career history, which attest to an openness, curiosity, and respect for non-mainstream filmmaking practices. Svenson admitted that he was not sure what he had gotten himself into when he signed up for Angry, but that he was happy to be onboard once he arrived in Falun, and that he had great respect for the local, independent filmmaking operation that Lindström was trying to build (Sandén). In other interviews, Svenson has expressed his misgivings about contemporary Hollywood, which he believes has been taken over by lawyers and businessmen who have little respect for free artistic expression, which leaves increasingly less space for people who want to make movies for the right reasons (“Spotlight”).

21Another part of the explanation could be that the project was not fully as miniscule as it first appears. Angry was co-produced by the British company Unizarre International Film and Television Productions and a Chinese investor listed in the film’s title credit sequence as William Xiao Chao Zhong—the sequence also credits Unizarre’s CEO, actor-producer David Bowles personally as a “co-producer” and Zhong as an “associate producer.” Perhaps the British and Chinese co-producers helped secure the funds necessary for acquiring Svenson’s services. The international setup also affected the release plans, as the Chinese involvement seems to have entailed the possibility of a slight expansion beyond the straight-to-video release that would have been customary for a film of this kind. As Lindström put it while the film was still in production, there might be a theatrical release, but if so, in the Chinese market only (Svenska Filminstitutet, “Starkt uppsving”).

22I have been unable to ascertain whether a theatrical release transpired in China or anywhere else. Overall, information about the film’s circulation and reception is severely limited. Currently, Angry is available on a number of streaming platforms, including free and/or AVOD options such as Plex and Fawesome as well as more well-known TVOD options such as Apple TV+ (“Angry”). Presumably, Penguin Films used Filmhub or some such combined content aggregator and distributor that connects filmmakers with a wide variety of streaming platforms.

23One striking element of the distribution model for Angry is the complete lack of interest in targeting a specifically Swedish market. Similarly, as a cinematic text, Angry is designed for global appeal by way of a curious emulation of Americanness on several levels. Location substitution is an important element; as already mentioned, various filming locations in the Falun area stand in for Alaska. The dialog language is English, but the efforts to approximate American English are not entirely convincing. Given that the actors speak with a noticeable Swedish/non-native accent, it requires a higher-than-usual degree of suspension of disbelief to go along with the suggestion that these characters are Americans. Not that it necessarily matters—seemingly absurd localizations of Americanness are de rigueur within the cinematic tradition that Angry belongs to. In their account of Nordic exploitation cinema, Gustafsson and Kääpä refer to this specific type as “global exploitation film,” which in its ambition to cater to international markets uses various “gimmicks” to emphasize non-Nordicness (Politics 20). Language and locations are key, but Gustafsson and Kääpä also mention the casting of American “stars” (20). Angry clearly fits the bill of the category in this way, too, thanks to Svenson, whose significance for the film can hardly be overestimated.

24Viewers do not learn very much about the character that Svenson plays, except that his name is Bill and that he is an American businessman based in Beijing. What brings him to Alaska and why he is looking for property there is not entirely clear. It is also unclear whether he has designs on Sandra (the real estate agent played by Idha); he is quite inquisitive, perhaps a bit flirtatious. But none of it seems particularly important—it is Svenson’s presence as such that matters. If this is an exploitation film, Svenson is the main element of exploitation. As such, Svenson contributes to a blurring of the boundaries between cinematic text and context in a manner similar to what Sconce has discussed as “paracinematic excess” (Sconce 387). The film occasionally reinforces this explosion of a self-contained diegesis by means of silly in-jokes. Consider, for example, the insertion of “the Wilhelm scream”—a canned piece of sound that has been used in hundreds of American films from the 1950s onward when anonymous characters are shot, fall of horses, etc.—at a moment when Svenson’s character is damaged by a rock thrown by Danny, the film’s ostensible psycho-killer. Or, consider how the naming of the character allows for dialog lines such as “[Sandra:] You killed Bill! [Danny:] Yes, I killed Bill,” a not-so-subtle invocation of Svenson’s Tarantino-sanctioned cult status.

25Danny kills Bill roughly halfway into the movie, at which point the movie changes direction with regard to genre, tone, and mode of address. The film starts out in familiar horror and slasher territories: We have an apparently abandoned house in the middle of nowhere, and a small group of people (in this case a duo) that drives out to this isolated location, only to find themselves stalked in the forest by a murderous madman. Also highly conventional, it turns out that this specific site is haunted by memories of previous injustices and traumatic events, which are re-activated in the form of extreme violence. However, what is revealed when the film shifts gears halfway through is that Sandra is not just some random, innocent victim, but that she and Danny were previously a couple and that Danny is the estranged father of Sandra’s five-year old son. What the rest of the film works through is the disintegration of their relationship, which in turn is linked to Danny’s economic troubles following the financial meltdown of 2008, which brought about the foreclosure of his house, a property he insists is still rightly his, but that Sandra is now tasked with placing on the market. The film alters its visual style, mood, and narrative technique to convey these events. Danny’s stalking of Sandra in the woods continues, but now intercut with a series of flashbacks and protracted, visually subdued scenes of dialog between the two main characters. The film ends with Sandra killing Danny, apparently to get him out of her mind—supposedly, it was her trauma rather than his.

26One notable effect of the emphasis on relationship drama is a relative deficit of blood, gore, and sex for this kind of film. To be sure, Danny has murdered and chopped up an entire family and stashed them in different parts of the foreclosed house, but these events are mostly hinted at in ultra-brief inserts rather than revealed in visual detail for shock effect, or used for jump-scares. Also, Danny does not really fit the standard bill of a terrifying slasher killer—he does not come across as some unfathomable, unstoppable, monstrous force, just as an extremely angry, violent man. With regard to sexual elements, Sandra remains in professional, buttoned-up attire until a moment relatively late in the film, when a mysterious hillbilly-style hunter suddenly appears between the trees. This man is clearly intent on sexually assaulting Sandra, but only manages to tear out a couple of buttons from her blouse before Danny shows up and kills him with an axe (at this point, we know that Sandra and Danny have a past and that he does not really want to kill her, he only “wants to talk”). This brings us back to the previous point that the real element of exploitation in Angry is not sex and violence, but Svenson and his embodiment not only of B movie cult status, but also of a Swedish-American identity that resonates with the film’s curious amalgamation of Americanness and a hyperlocal Swedish context of production.

27The various alternations of genre, style, and tonality, and the inclusion of weakly motivated minor characters and side plots, generate a textual incoherence that is difficult to capture in writing. With that said, even if Angry is an extreme case, my other two case films are informed by a similar challenge of film form: As we will see, these films, too, present themselves as genre films that also want to move beyond the most conventional genre tropes. In those cases, however, we will be able to say something about how audiences and critics reacted to how the filmmakers met this and other challenges, including the ambition to merge American cinematic traditions with Swedish elements. With Angry, there is no way of knowing—it is the kind of film that has come and gone without anyone noticing. There are no professional reviews of the film, and only a few scattered online traces of interest among niche audiences. A shadow history of reception could be out there, but with regard to a Swedish context, Angry rests securely in the darkest corners of the slaughterhouse of cinema.

3.2 The Case of Operation Ragnarök (2018)

28Operation Ragnarök is a combination of action, thriller, and disaster film—and more. When the project was launched under the working title “Zone 261,” the producers described it as “28 DAYS LATER meets ROMEO AND JULIET” and as “packed with action, chases, shoot-outs and explosions—as well as drama, romance, comic relief and colorful characters” (“Zone 261”). The plot is roughly as follows: In the small town of Landskrona, Sweden, a dangerous virus that turns people into monsters begins to spread due to an accidental leak. The military places Landskrona in quarantine. Meanwhile, a small group of non-infected people including both native Swedes and immigrants find themselves ensconced in the town’s old citadel. They have to fight the monsters to survive, but an increasingly intense ethnic conflict threatens to stand in the way.

29Similar to Angry, Operation Ragnarök is an independent production that was realized without support from the Swedish Film Institute. In this case, however, the movie the filmmakers had in mind required considerable resources. Explosions, advanced special effects, and action-packed mass scenes are expensive—at least if the aim is to meet the standards that Hollywood has set. The obvious way for national cinemas outside of the U.S. to handle this fundamental form of American influence—i.e. the existence of long-established Hollywood standards of “quality” for narrative filmmaking in general and for various genres specifically—is to relinquish production within the most resource-intense genres. Conventional wisdom would point to this as the main reason why there are so few Swedish action and sci-fi movies. But what about the ones that are made nevertheless, such as Operation Ragnarök? In this case, the filmmakers tried to compensate for the lack of public funding and institutional support with precious time. Or that is how writer-director Fredrik Hiller put it: “How do you overcome the gap between very high levels of ambition and very limited resources? You pay for it with time” (“Operation Ragnarök – Höstens svenska Filmpremiärer 2018”). The project was launched in 2010, principal shooting took place in 2013, and the film was released in December 2018.

30But time was not the only resource available. Crowdfunding played a part, as did local sponsors, and, above all, pro-bono contributions by much of the cast and crew. This illustrates how various formal and informal networks are crucial in shaping the prospects for genre filmmaking in Sweden. Fredrik Hiller, the driving-force behind Operation Ragnarök, was more well-connected and moved closer to the core of Swedish film culture in Sweden than someone like Angry’s writer-producer Jesper Pingo Lindström, with his one-man operation in Falun. Hiller had already directed a feature film—Psalm 21 (2010)—and managed to bring some of the cast and crew with him to his next project. This group of people included actors with strong recognition, most notably Per Ragnar (whom international readers might know from Let the Right One In [Låt den rätte komma in, Tomas Alfredson, 2008]), but also a number of other performers well-known to Swedish audiences. One of them, Bahar Pars, was not in the public consciousness when Operation Ragnarök was shot in 2013, but when it premiered in 2018, almost two million Swedes had seen her in A Man Called Ove (Hannes Holm, 2015). Pars’s participation in the most popular Swedish film in four decades as well as an independent monster film that—as we will discover—almost no one went to see reinforces my point that even though Hiller and his team operated in a context of independent genre filmmaking that was in one sense marginal to Swedish cinema, they were still connected to the same fluid and flexible network that also includes the mainstream.

31However, we can also think of genre filmmaking as its own separate field of cultural production, sustained through informal as well as formalized modes of collaboration. For example, LittleBig Productions, one of the two production companies behind Operation Ragnarök, is niched toward genre film and was one of six companies that orchestrated a “Nordic Genre Invasion” at the 2013 Cannes film festival, an initiative that developed into the more permanent Nordic Genre Invasion network, “a marketing, distribution and collaboration platform for Nordic Genre” (Durie; Nordic Genre Invasion). The film’s distributor, Njutafilms, offers a wide range of film types, but is Sweden’s leading distributor of genre films, including action, horror, sci-fi, exploitation, erotica, cult films, and more. Of course, in spite of this supportive infrastructure for genre film, and in spite of Hiller’s proximity to the mainstream of Swedish cinema, it must be said that the Operation Ragnarök project was severely lacking in financial and other resources. Hiller suggested that as the years went by, and production dragged out, no one believed that the film would ever be completed and that everyone was “incredibly shocked” when it actually was (“Fredrik Hillers monsterdröm”).

32The film depicts the events of terror and mayhem that is caused by the spread of a virus that turns regular people into murderous monsters. Most reviewers came to label Operation Ragnarök a “zombie movie,” which Sweden’s resident zombie apocalypse authority Herman Geijer pointed out was technically incorrect: zombies cannot run, use firearms, etc. (Geijer, “Inför”). The monsters in Operation Ragnarök are better described as zombie-like maniacs of a kind that one reviewer well-versed in the history of genre film recognized from films such as Nightmare City (Umberto Lenzi, 1980) and The Crazies (George Romero, 1973) (P. Andersson, “Bio: Operation Ragnarök”). Hiller himself pointed to a more widely known model for this type of monster: 28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2002) (Geijer, “Intervju”). With regard to the general idea for Operation Ragnarök, another source of inspiration that Hiller highlighted was The Walking Dead, especially the comic book originals, but also the TV series adaptation (which at the time was a major surprise hit for the FX network). What made The Walking Dead interesting for him was its focus not so much on the zombie apocalypse itself but on how people act under such extreme events, how they treat each other, and how they struggle personally and psychologically (Geijer, “Intervju”). More specifically, as Hiller stressed again and again over the long course of production as well as after the movie’s completion, his idea was to use monsters as a metaphor for xenophobia, and to use the format of an exciting genre film to explore the tendency in human beings to make monsters out of what they perceive as foreign or unknown others (see Geijer, “Intervju”; Geijer, “Inför”; Kardelo, “Därför”; “Fredrik Hillers monsterdröm”; Svenska Filminstitutet, “Operation Ragnarök”). Accordingly, Hiller would sometimes pitch Operation Ragnarök as a “monster movie—that is not a monster movie—about xenophobia” (Tramsitse).

33Hiller noted that racism was on the increase across Europe, but he also emphasized how the setting of Landskrona was meant to anchor the film in a specifically Swedish political context. Landskrona specifically and the province of Skåne generally had been the site of political breakthrough for the Sweden Democrats, a nationalist-conservative party with roots in the Swedish neo-Nazi movement (they were subsequently voted into the national parliament in 2006 and have continued to grow—they are currently the second biggest party in the Swedish parliament, gathering around 20% of the voters). Furthermore, Landskrona had made national news due to problems related to ethnic conflict. One specific event that Hiller had in mind was a murder in a parking lot in 2010, and an ecumenical service that followed in the aftermath, which for Hiller represented the tragedy of ethnically motivated violence, but also people’s capacity to come together. Additionally, the setting of the town’s old citadel worked as a metaphor for Sweden as a fortress, and literalized the problem of who is or is not allowed to come in (“Fredrik Hillers monsterdröm”).

34This was the background for the structuring of Operation Ragnarök around two families (one “Swedish,” the other “immigrant”) that simultaneously embody the destructive, even deadly, mechanisms of ethnic division and conflict and the hope of overcoming such differences. The latter is achieved by the film’s Romeo and Juliet plot line, but also by the two groups banding together to fight a common enemy and greater threat, precisely as the genre requires. There is also a plot twist concerning the functions of the virus that further reinforces the film’s basic message that “we’re all human beings.” Overall, even though the filmmakers would often emphasize their intent to offer an earnest statement about the dangers of demonizing our fellow men, it is clear that they wanted to make an effort to provide viewers with the delights of the genre: explosions, chase scenes, violent and tense confrontations between infected and non-infected, situation room showdowns, and so on. As was announced on the project website just after the principal shooting in Landskrona had wrapped in November 2013: “We can already say that we have material in true Hollywood style. ZONE 261 will take the world by storm next fall!” (“That’s a Wrap”).

35Operation Ragnarök was not released “next fall” and has not (yet) taken “the world by storm.” According to available statistics, only 1,632 people paid to see the movie in a theater (Svenska Filminstitutet, “Biobesökssiffror”). Review scores were conspicuously low. However, these scores do not capture what was actually a generous view among critics, especially with regard to the ambition to make a proper genre film of American cut in a Swedish context. Several critics were impressed that the film had seen the light of day at all, and commended the filmmakers for sticking to the courage of their conviction, and for their ability to overcome the apparently dire circumstances of genre filmmaking in Sweden (Johnson, “Crowdfundad”; Eliasson). With that said, the universal critical sentiment was that the screenplay, the acting, and other basic components of successful narrative filmmaking did not work. Indeed, many critics argued that the film was spectacularly bad on these counts—the word “turkey” (Sw. kalkon) featured in multiple reviews: “Risible turkey-level” (Viita); “A Swedish zombie turkey” (Benjelloul); “Top score on the turkey scale” (Kardelo, “Full pott”); and so on. Interestingly, though, reviews in this vein tended to suggest that the film’s turkey-ness was its main source of pleasure, a quality that made the film an “unforgettable experience” (Viita) and made for a movie that was never boring, consistently entertaining (Eliasson; Kardelo, “Full pott”; J-O. Andersson, “Svensk skräckfilm”; Helgesson). Along similar lines, some predicted or expressed hopes that Operation Ragnarök would become a cult classic (Sigander/TT; Helgesson; Viita; Brander, “Operation Ragnarök”). A related strand in the critical discourse concerned the film’s balance between genre elements and the ambition to speak to serious political and social matters. Here, many critics expressed that they would have preferred a stronger emphasis on the pure cinematic attractions of genre. One critic argued the film would have been better off had it surrendered itself more fully to pure “Zombie thrills” (Sw. zombieraffel); another said he wished that the movie had gone total “turkey fest,” e.g. as a “happy-go-lucky splatter flick that no one is supposed to take seriously” (P. Andersson, “Bio: Operation Ragnarök”; Kardelo, “Full pott”). The possible paradox here is that Operation Ragnarök’s turkey-ness, and hereby its potential as a future “So Bad It’s Good” cult classic, arguably hinges precisely on the ambition to exceed a “pure” genre film, since it is only the inclusion of an element of “serious” drama that can give rise to the expectations of certain standards of narrative logic, solid acting, etc. that the film had supposedly failed to meet.

36One cause for such inconsistencies in the critical discourse might have been a degree of over-enthusiasm for Swedish genre filmmaking—many critics were rooting for the film simply based on its identity as a genre film. In the words of one critic: “In all honesty I so much want to love this movie. A Swedish genre film that has slowly made its way forward with small means and finally makes it to the big screen. It is so well-fought” (Wiberg). Similarly: “Still, it is difficult not to feel genuinely happy that Operation Ragnarök was produced. A completely un-ironic zombie movie—that alone is fairly unique” (Viita). Unique by Swedish measures, that is. And it is clear that the critics who rooted for Swedish genre film generally and this film specifically did so partly based on a desire for Swedish cinema to move out of its comfort zone: “‘Operation Ragnarök’ is something as rare as a Swedish genre film that dares break out of the kitchen sink realism niche to give us something different. Monsters and action. Hustle and bustle. And in the middle of the chaos a conversation about xenophobia” (Kardelo, “Full pott”). The cast and crew, too, would occasionally highlight the un-Swedish character of the film as an asset. Bahar Pars made the case that Operation Ragnarök “is an unusual gem. A genre film. Everyone is so used to watching American action, we haven’t had a chance to develop that. We are only supposed to do Bergman here. I don’t like that; we should be allowed to explore other genres” (Johansson). What was standing in the way for Swedish filmmakers to explore American genres and styles of filmmaking? Critics had a very clear idea, demonstrated perfectly by the case of Operation Ragnarök: lacking institutional support, especially from the Swedish Film Institute. “The film took a full eight years from the initial idea to completion, and naturally the Swedish Film Institute was never involved. Genre films are not really their kind of thing (to fund)” (Eliasson). Similarly: “The Swedish Film Institute is not exactly known for throwing money at genre films” (Kardelo, “Full pott”) and “[genre film] is not really something for which the … Swedish Film Institute will open its wallet” (J. O. Andersson, “Svensk skräckfilm”).

37As we have seen, by drawing on various conventions familiar from action-thrillers, disaster films, zombie movies, and monster pictures, Operation Ragnarök engages with a tradition of genre filmmaking that the filmmakers believed to be in “true Hollywood style.” Reviewers, too, acknowledged the various genre influences as primarily, if not exclusively, of American origin. However, there is no doubt that the primary intended market for the film was Sweden. This marks a significant difference compared to the case of Angry, with its occasionally gimmicky, possibly tongue-in-cheek, emulation of Americanness on several levels, and with its international marketing scheme. Operation Ragnarök does contain a brief appearance of Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, the Icelandic strongman who played Gregor Clegane, aka “The Mountain,” on Game of Thrones (HBO, 2011–2019), which can be regarded as a faint echo of the “global exploitation film” template that fits Angry (Gustafsson and Kääpä, Politics 20). But otherwise, the category of the “localized exploitation film” is a much better match for Operation Ragnarök. This category includes what Gustafsson and Kääpä describe as “domestic variations” of “an established genre” and films that “use genre formats but are predominantly aimed at domestic markets” (Politics 19–20). Language is one obvious difference: broken American English in Angry, Swedish (including versions of the local Skåne accent—authentic and approximated), and Kurdish in Operation Ragnarök. The use of location also works entirely differently. In Angry, the Falun area stands in for Alaska; in Operation Ragnarök, Landskrona adds an immediacy of location specificity, as well as symbolic value with regard to a (trans)national story about the politics of xenophobia and fear. Finally, there are significant contrasts in terms of how the filmmakers “navigated the complex media and cultural environments” (Gustafsson and Kääpä, Politics 20) of the Swedish film industry. Although Angry and Operation Ragnarök were both independent productions facing severe budget restrictions and a lack of institutional support, Hiller and the rest of the team behind the latter film were still able to tap into the mainstream of Swedish cinema to some extent. This relative proximity to “official” or hegemonic Swedish film culture is also evinced in the critical reception. The mere fact of Operation Ragnarök being widely reviewed is significant in this context, but it is also noteworthy that critics overwhelmingly expressed a sympathetic view of the film, in spite of (or partly because of) its apparent shortcomings when judged against conventional taste norms. In this way, the case of Operation Ragnarök exemplifies a recent embrace of Swedish genre films that are made in an American mold, and, to borrow a phrase from Gustafsson and Kääpä, the tendency of American-inspired genre filmmaking to become “increasingly institutionalized” as a legitimate part of Swedish film culture (Politics 181). Such processes of mainstreaming and institutionalization are even more evident in my third case film.

3.3 The Case of The Unthinkable (2018)

38The Unthinkable was seen as part of a wave of Swedish disaster films that came out in 2018 and that also included Operation Ragnarök, Jimmie (Jesper Ganslandt), and Innan vintern kommer (Stefan Jarl) (Helgesson). Other genre labels that could be attached to the film are action, thriller, conspiracy thriller, and sci-fi. The film interweaves an action plot with a romantic plot and elements of family melodrama. The action parts concern a mysterious attack on Sweden: buildings explode, electricity and communications systems go down, and people begin to behave like demented maniacs. The romance and family melodrama are built around Alex, a successful musician who had a troubled childhood. When the attack happens, he finds himself back in the small town where he grew up, reunited with his old love interest Anna as well as his estranged father.

39Among my three case films and the titles mentioned in the paragraph above, The Unthinkable was by far the most successful in terms of audience response and commercial results. In Sweden, over 110,000 people paid to see The Unthinkable in a movie theater, a significant achievement for a contemporary Swedish movie, and it had been sold to 94 countries by early 2019 (Lindahl). Arguably, The Unthinkable hereby represents the Swedish mainstreaming of “American” genre filmmaking as well as a merger between localized and global models of genre filmmaking in Sweden, as part of what Gustafsson and Kääpä describe as “a wider integration of global film markets, one where content can flow easily over borders and reach a wide variety of potential consumers” (Politics 181). A closer look at the production history and the institutional conditions will help us identify key factors in that process.

40The Unthinkable was made by a Norrköping-based five-man filmmaking collective called Crazy Pictures (consisting of Victor Danell, Hannes Krantz, Albin Pettersson, Rasmus Råsmark, and Olle Tholén). The collective mode of authorship as well as the importance of Norrköping as a base of operations break with historical norms of Swedish cinema, which has been heavily invested in the concept of the auteur and centralized to Stockholm (at least up until the 1990s when the establishing of regional production centers initiated a gradual decentralization of film production—see Hedling 69–74). Also atypically for Swedish cinema, the members of Crazy Pictures neither went to film school nor learned the trade by working on different sets or within various Swedish productions. Rather, they are enthusiasts who started out around the age of ten making amateur action films in the backyard, gradually moving on to make ad films for profit as well as satirical short films for their YouTube channel (Kulturakademin K-Play). Some of the latter went viral, which allowed the collective to build a considerable fan base.

41Sometime in 2010, the Crazy Pictures members heard the outdoor public warning system that is tested at 3 pm on the first Monday in March, June, September, and December in Sweden. This inspired the idea for The Unthinkable (Pihlblad). What if there is actually a war or some such catastrophic emergency? What would happen? How would people react? One journalist later commented that this concept of an attack by a mysterious foreign power was “well-known from American cinema, but strangely under-explored in Swedish films” (Brander, “Succésvenskarna”). According to the members of Crazy Pictures, the film establishment was initially skeptic about the idea of a Swedish third-world-war-scenario type of movie. An early-stage application for development support from the Swedish Film Institute was declined (Crazy Pictures, “Resan”). Additional applications to the Film Institute for development and production support followed, tallying up to a total of five applications in six years—all declined (Brander, “Succésvenskarna”). Somewhere along the way, the idea of crowdfunding came in. Cheered on by fans and the local community of Norrköping, and convinced that they could make “Sweden’s cheapest feature film,” Crazy Pictures produced a short pilot for the film and launched a Kickstarter campaign (Crazy Pictures, “Resan”; Kulturakademin K-play). The target sum of SEK 300,000 was met within twenty-four hours; all in all, the crowdfunding generated SEK 800,000 (Crazy Pictures, “Resan”; Brander, “Succésvenskarna”). This piqued the interest of some key players in the Swedish film business, and eventually a traditional funding framework developed for the film, involving a leading regional co-producer (Film i Väst), a major distributor (SF Studios), a national television network (TV4), and various film funds (Crazy Pictures, “Q&A”). The Film Institute, however, remained conspicuously absent. The final budget was SEK 18.5 million, which is about SEK 9 million below the average for a Swedish feature-length fiction film with production support from the Film Institute in 2018 (Svenska Filminstitutet, “Facts and Figures 2018” 18).

42Later on, members of Crazy Pictures would suggest that some of the resistance from the Film Institute and other parts of the established industry might have had to do with the project’s American influences: “We were very inspired by American film …. And in hindsight I can understand the criticism; here comes a bunch of twenty-five-year-olds who want to make an over-ambitious mammoth action movie about Sweden under attack, including spectacular special effects, car crashes and explosions in true Hollywood spirit” (Lindahl). This was far from the only occasion Crazy Pictures proudly admitted the debt they owed to American cinema (see e.g. Östlund; Ohlsson; Isaksson; Selsfors), or used this to express an indie sentiment and emphasize an outsider identity: “We are pretty marked by being a bunch of country bumpkins who had been sitting around watching a lot of commercial American movies, far away from the Swedish film industry” (TT). But they were also cautious to note that the aim was not to emulate the template, but to create something that was truly original: “Our plan was to make something spectacular and not restrict ourselves. We have been watching a lot of American film, but not to imitate it” (Wising). Key to this ambition was the effort to anchor the American genre elements in a specifically Swedish context: “We have found our own voice, which is about making a movie that takes place in Sweden but that does not feel entirely Swedish” (TT). In another interview, Crazy Pictures tried to explain how they were trying to create an intense contrast between spectacular elements and local motifs and sceneries:

We have grown up in the Swedish countryside and tell the story from that perspective. We start out with the Midsummer’s pole, Swedish meadows, red cottage houses with white corners and an old SAAB 900 from the early 90s. We start out with all of the beauty of that, and then we destroy it all to create an effect with the audience. (Östlund)

43The destruction they were talking about included the blowing up of Stockholm landmarks such as Västerbron and the national parliament building. Aside from Stockholm scenes, the film showcased the area around Crazy Pictures’ hometown of Norrköping in the Östergötland province, a setting that was key to the filmmakers’ ambition to combine spectacular genre-based attractions with dramatic elements that were closer to a more conventionally Swedish filmmaking tradition: “We think of it as a haunting and brutal thriller that moves viewers and we have wanted to explore how people in Sweden, and more specifically Östergötland where we all grew up, would act if something that has never happened before would suddenly come to pass” (Ohlsson).

44Crazy Pictures formulated and shaped the basic ideas for the project in direct dialog with their pre-constituted audience—their fans—throughout the entire process from idea to completion. When the film was in production, they would post behind-the-scenes material, teasers, and other videos on their YouTube channel (see Crazy Pictures, Playlist, for a selection). This was a way to receive feedback and get a sense of audience preferences, while also showing crowdfunders that the project was moving forward. It also built hype for the movie while still in production, a mode of marketing that a later analysis pointed to as one reason for the subsequent commercial success (Fikra 49–50). In a televised interview on the day of the film’s release, members from the group noted that their dialog with the audience had convinced them that there was a great demand for this type of spectacular action film “in Swedish,” especially from people otherwise reluctant to pay money to see a Swedish film in a movie theater (TV4). Indeed, the main target audience according to Crazy Pictures were people who normally would not watch Swedish films on the big screen (Kulturakademin K-play). “It’s a problem that many in our generation, people under forty, don’t watch Swedish films and think that those films are irrelevant in cinemas” (Brander, “Succésvenskarna”).

45As these quotes indicate, The Unthinkable was made with the big screen in mind, based on the assumption that a cinema would be the best place to experience this kind of action-driven, special effects-intense movie. Accordingly, when the theatrical release was imminent, the collective’s direct communication with fans was peppered with constant reminders to “book your tickets now” (see e.g. Crazy Pictures, “Q&A”). When asked how they figured that this type of film would be able to compete with American movies with budgets ten or twenty or thirty times larger, Crazy Pictures responded that they were used to making large films with limited means and that they believed that The Unthinkable lived up to genre expectations (Ohlsson). They were also banking on the film’s combination of a high “crash, boom, bang” factor (to paraphrase Lundström, “Förstör”) and distinct markers of Swedishness—its combination of American and Swedish elements, if you will—which arguably made the film unusual for Swedish cinema, yet relatable for Swedish audiences.

46As already noted, The Unthinkable did attract a significant Swedish moviegoing audience. Reviews were mixed, mostly positive. Almost all critics, regardless of their overall assessment of the film, seemed impressed by the action scenes and the special effects. Comments on these elements ranged from mild appreciation to extreme hyperbole; from “impressive” (Oscarsson) and “successful” (Lindvall) to “Hollywood level” (Tosser), “on a par with Hollywood” (Kardelo, “Den första”), and “world class” (Lundborg) all the way to “more special effects than The Matrix and Star Wars” (Kardelo, “Den första”). Some critics took the financial restrictions into account, noting that the visuals were “miraculous given the budget” (Brander, “En film”) or that the film looked “more expensive than it actually is” (J-O. Andersson, “Svensk katastroffilm”). Others noted that visual effects and action segments of this kind had “rarely been seen in Swedish film” (P. Andersson, “Bio: Den blomstertid”) or even that The Unthinkable was “unlike any other Swedish film” (Kardelo, “Den första”). For the most part, then, critics agreed that The Unthinkable more or less met the standards set by American movies such as Independence Day (Roland Emmerich, 1996) and Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988) (these were the two examples most frequently mentioned) and directors such as Michael Bay (see e.g., Teleman; Kardelo, “Den första”; Yousefi; Lindvall).

47If the obvious point of reference for the action elements was American cinema, critics tended to think of the dramatic elements as recognizably Swedish. One critic labelled the opening of the film, which centers on the protagonist’s family story and his relationship with Anna when they were teenagers, as “typical Swedish drama” (P. Andersson, “Bio: Den blomstertid”). Another review described how conventional cinematic Swedishness interfered with the straightforward style of the American genre tradition that otherwise informed The Unthinkable: “While an American action movie settles for the simple stuff—heroes, romance, evil, shootouts, conflict resolved—The Unthinkable is utterly Swedish in its approach. … For long stretches of time, the ‘Sweden-under-attack’ part is forgotten … It turns into a slow-paced drama about a dysfunctional family” (Tosser). The problem for this reviewer was not necessarily the “typically Swedish” drama in itself, but the fact that in this case, these elements failed to engage the viewer. This was representative of the majority view—critics were not impressed with the family drama and the love story. One review suggested that Crazy Pictures excelled in action but needed a script doctor (Johnson, “En svensk”). Another even argued that the drama was so “pathetic” that it pushed the film toward turkey territory, in spite of impressive effects work (Oscarsson). We recognize the pattern from the response to Operation Ragnarök: critics embraced the effort to make an entertaining action-thriller in a Swedish setting but rejected the inclusion of a type of “serious” drama that they found to be all too Swedish.

48In an article from 2016, then-editor of the film magazine FLM Jacob Lundström noted that “the Swede’s repressed infatuation with American entertainment film” had begun to come to the surface since the turn-of-the-millennium (“Förstör”). Pointing to the buzz that was already building around The Unthinkable at the time (among other examples), Lundström suggested that a final breakthrough for genre filmmaking in Swedish cinema was evident: “Nothing is holding us back anymore,” he stated, noticing that even Swedish filmmakers operating within the realms of “quality cinema” were moving into genre territories previously considered anathema to the national cinema’s self-image (Lundström, “Förstör”). As shown above, when The Unthinkable was released two years later, many Swedish film critics were onboard—there was nothing holding them back in expressing their hunger for American-styled Swedish genre films and to air their hopes for those kinds of film to revitalize the national cinema. In this and other ways, the case of The Unthinkable speaks to the ongoing institutionalization and integration of genre filmmaking as a legitimate part of Swedish film culture, and the concomitant recalibration of the relationship between the national cinema and Hollywood’s commercial mass culture, which no longer functions as an a priori bad Other or a force that the national cinema must oppose, resist, and define itself against.

4. Concluding Remarks

49Genre films were always a crucial part of Swedish cinema, and American cinema always a significant force of influence, even if it was not always officially and institutionally acknowledged. In this general sense, not much has changed. With that said, the attitude toward American-inspired Swedish genre films has become decidedly more generous in recent years. Are shifting attitudes and discursive renegotiations matched by improving institutional conditions? As should be clear from my case studies, there is no conclusive answer that applies generally to all forms of Swedish genre filmmaking, but there are certainly positive signs. One would be the tremendous success of some films that managed to combine genre elements with the Swedish/European traditions of art cinema and social realism. Let the Right One In is the most oft-cited case in point, but recent examples would also include arthouse-inflected, festival-destined thrillers by Ali Abbasi and Tarik Saleh. The success of these films may inspire more filmmakers to make genre movies (this was most definitely the case with Let the Right One In and the upswing for Swedish horror—see Svenska Filminstitutet, “Starkt uppsving”; Åsell) and may also improve the prospects of finding sufficient funding for such projects. Indeed, Film Institutes in the Nordic countries are no longer as reluctant to fund genre films as was the case only a couple of decades ago (Gustafsson and Kääpä, Politics 238). In addition, a supportive infrastructure made up of niche companies and institutions and people with a special interest in genre filmmaking is expanding—the Nordic Genre Invasion network as well as the international network of genre-specific film festivals come to mind (Gustafsson and Kääpä, Politics 236). Technical developments also help—cheap and readily available digital technology lowers barriers of entry into genre filmmaking (Gustafsson and Kääpä, Politics 184), streaming and other forms of digital delivery make it easier to reach relevant audiences, and social media potentially allow for productive interactions between filmmakers and fans. Another factor that has helped consolidate genre filmmaking as a more common practice in Sweden is the increasingly wide recognition of the commercial viability of such films. For example, Netflix has made relatively substantial investments in the production of Swedish feature films in recent years, particularly in genres such as action, horror, thriller, and rom-com. It could be argued that Netflix’s support for genre filmmaking contributes to the diversity of Swedish cinema by filling a gap left open by the tendency in conventional funding structures (in which the Swedish Film Institute still plays a key role) to over-prioritize the production of serious drama, art films, and documentaries (Meir 111). However, it would be misleading to place Swedish genre filmmaking on one end of a dichotomy that already in itself tends to overstate the separation between private and public, new and old, commercial and non-commercial, and, for that matter, American and Swedish. Rather, what the three case studies presented in this article evince is the haphazard and unpredictable variety of conditions and circumstances that pertain to genre filmmaking in Sweden today, the wide range of aesthetic options, production models, distribution networks, and marketing strategies available, and the heterogeneity of responses and reactions that Swedish-American genre hybridizations generate. Explanatory frameworks with a strictly bilateral focus on the United States and Sweden cannot capture the complexity of this situation. But neither can we dismiss the momentous role that American popular cinema keeps playing in the formation of Swedish film culture.

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References

Electronic reference

Joel Frykholm, In True Hollywood Style? Localized Emulations of American Genre Film in Contemporary Swedish Cinema European journal of American studies [Online], 20-3 | 2025, Online since 01 December 2025, connection on 25 January 2026. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/ejas/24840; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/15dme

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About the author

Joel Frykholm

Joel Frykholm is Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at Stockholm University. He is author of George Kleine and American Cinema (BFI, 2015) and co-editor (with Marina Dahlquist) of The Institutionalization of Educational Cinema (Indiana University Press, 2019). His research interests include early American cinema, Swedish cinema history, Swedish contemporary film and television culture, and Swedish responses to the global impact of American popular culture from cinema’s silent era onward.

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Copyright

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The text only may be used under licence CC BY 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) may be subject to specific use terms.

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