This is how it is,
Over the years, I have become almost allergic to most Swedish TV- dramatic, because it very rarely feels like it's really done for live viewers. The dialogues are mostly so boring that commercial dialogues are better, the tone is monotonous and there is a dull feeling about it all, the feeling of trying to sound like i ” real” which, in the first place, is not the task of art, and secondly, an untalented disillusioned interpretation of how ” real ” allows, which has become somewhat of a general tone in TV- series after TV- serie. I think it's sad. oh, I'm generalizing a bit but not too much. Even in the popular series ” Our time is now” this monotonous tone settled over the dialogues, which only occasionally sprung with a little life.
As for drama for young people ( all categories except perhaps for the very smallest ) so the tone is often heated, lines are shouted out at high volume and too fast, the dialogues full of references that are incomprehensible to most children but that their brains still have to rake through to search for meaning and logic in what is being delivered. ( not least in animated series – why?) Simply put, it's stressful, as if you believe that children should be treated at a fast pace, high volume and shout just because they sometimes behave like that themselves. Do you think it is ” roligt” och ” capturing” – how much do people who make television for children really know ABOUT CHILDREN?
I always check a few episodes of the Christmas calendar every year to see if there is possibly something that can be enchanted, attracts, and who meet the young viewers with obvious respect, and is not lousy in the hopeless way I described above. This year I have – and so many with me – really pleasantly surprised! The Crown Prince who disappeared is well written and well directed! The scenes are good, fun, interesting , enticing to see, listen to and to follow forward -. one is amazed! As a playwright, you see that this is well worked out, it is written with pleasure and joy, and intelligence, with a willingness to communicate, reach their viewers, listener. The acting is good on all fronts and the kids are very good – which is absolutely unusual as many productions seem to be fine with the line deliverers simply being children.
This director knows what he's doing! Here we get to see a lot of live games, with integrity and respect, and warmth and humor. I sit and cheer on the sofa in the morning with joy and surprise : think that this kind of television can be made today? That for once they seem to have understood the value of a good script, of good direction and editing? How is it that you suddenly manage to appeal to the audience in this way, when otherwise often some kind of mumbling is delivered – for children screaming – which you have to put in a lot of effort to succeed in arousing interest in , because you don't even feel invited.
So I am basically ALWAYS led to the tone that should be ” reality” , to show, the talk, the attitudes to be similar ” real ” and as Swedish tV- drama seems to have made it his signature, a style that makes the acting so terribly uninteresting, also the dialogues and thus
ALL OF IT.
But now! THE CHRISTMAS CALENDAR. Whoa!
That's a good sign in many ways. Above all, fun for the children to finally be offered something really good and appealing and fun and well done and exciting. Dessutom, if their adults are also curious and want to follow the story for their own interest, We immediately have something to share – which goes well without coming along ” funny things” which should appeal to the adult audience ( ridiculously!) – it is enough that it is well done, that it is imbued with a genuine desire to TELL as well as possible.
But imagine if things could turn around now, the tråkton trend in Swedish TV- dramatic?
I will never write for TV again. Many people ask, they want me to write something like Ebba and Didrik, or the gap. Men det går inte, because all ideas die as soon as you start talking about them. They must be inserted into different templates to be presented in these straitjacket templates to be pitched to the highest power and manglased between different instances and levels and layers before it can even come to a possible order and all the time you have to have others poking at your creation – this when you yourself are ON THE WAY INTO the world your creative brain has delivered and which you do not yet know everything about , because it is the creation process itself that teaches you that – and there will be styluses, formulas, points and requirements…in any case, I have completely lost the desire to be part of such a desire-killing grief. Everything becomes flattened and anxious, even if it is dressed in ” of reality ” disillusioned bitterness to be ” recognizable” eller ” in time”. The freedom of a playwright ( screenwriter as we are more often referred to – a word that sounds like a common writer and lacks esprit!) writing our unique stories without pointers and rules is, in my impression and that of many others, GONE. ( we are a few who wrote big hits for TV that still live on in the hearts of the audience, but none of us is up to writing TV according to today's anxious terms of use. )
But here, here it has succeeded on all levels! And that really makes me HAPPY. Som sagt, mainly for the sake of the expectant children, who hunger to get their longing for quality ( one collective word too many, basically respect for their audience) satisfied. By that I mean:
For example: You can think you see each other. But there is a HUGE difference in looking into another's eyes, or to look into another's eyes. A simple way for me to describe ”quality”…
Förresten, and now I swing to the screen, but Ruben Östlund's TRIANGLE of SADNESS….. was also a wonderful surprise! Good scenes, underbara! – dialog, game, a swirling feeling of being taken by the hand of the narrator, order, come along on a journey into this story. That is, there is a WILL to communicate, catch, locka, and dim down with some glowing grain into some living and curious and slumbering condition within the viewer.
Tro det eller ej, if good actors are given good dialogue, they will be VERY GOOD, sometimes INCREDIBLY GOOD and the story COMES TO SPARKLING and MULTI-FACETED LIFE- which should be the meaning and intention of it all ( it's not exactly free either)
Shortly said: now I get up in the mornings to look forward to the continuation of this year's Christmas calendar and rejoice at the thought of all the children doing the same. Even the hatch opening is fun! So nice to avoid skin stress, adjust the screaming style. Why do you think kids like it?? in that case all children would be super harmonious in too large groups of children.
Tord Danielsson has directed THE CROWN PRINCE WHO IS DISAPPEARED and Mattias Grosin, Linn Mannheimer and Isabelle Riddez have written the script. FUNNY that it could be done this way!
