Almost perfect “Ronja Røverdatter”.
Thursday 28 March at 22:11
«Ronja Robber’s Daughter»
Swedish fantasy drama in twelve parts
Med: Kjerstin Linden, Christopher Wagelin, Krista Kosonen, Jack Bergenholtz Henriksson, Johan Ulveson and others.
Screenplay: Hans Rosenfeldt
Director: Lisa James Larsson
The first six episodes are on Netflix from March 28
Tage Danielson’s 1984 interpretation of Astrid Lindgren’s 1981 book is close to unique in its portrayal of the nature and robber child Ronja. Born in Mattisborgen in the early Scandinavian Middle Ages, with a joie de vivre so infectious that it can make a stone rejoice over spring.
In the Netflix version (actually made for Viaplay, but the accounts did not add up), director Lisa James Larsson leans heavily towards both original versions (and to a lesser extent the Japanese one from 2014): Clips, scenery, nature and camera angles nod to the film, while for example Kjerstin Linden’s Ronja has been given the same curl weld as Ilon Wikland’s book illustrations.
The forest and mountains are breathtakingly beautiful, and terrifyingly scary at the same time.
The pawing gray dwarves are even more disgusting executive drunks in the taxi queue, the underground ones in the fog are downright disgusting. Computer-animated wits come a little too close, while the hodretsus (“woffer then then?”) are made just so Disney-comic that someone in the toy industry should know their visiting time.
ALMOST PERFECT: The vets are scary, but a little too animated Photo: PROMO/Frida Wendel
Krista Kosonen brings much of the Alfhildr Enginsdottir role in Beforeigners, and continues Lovis as the actual bandit chieftain. Christopher Wagelin (“Quick Cash”) is so similar to Börje Ahlstedt in both facts and appearance that one can wonder where the Swedes have their source of youth.
Johan Ulveson is pleasant as Skalle-Per, but is unable to approach Allan Edwall. Jack Bergenholtz Henriksson does hockey welding quite well again, and Birk more awkward and charmingly uncertain than the fist magnet interpretation of Dan Håfström.
The real reason to stay tuned is Kjerstin Linden’s lead role.
The 14-year-old owns and is irresistibly good every moment she is on camera (quite often). In the seriously difficult balance between being tough and curious. People believe in the joy of life and the feeling of freedom. You can understand why hen father Mattis is so worried.
Screenwriter Hans Rosenfeldt (“Rederiet”, “Wallander”, “Broen”) takes steps that at first seem somewhat convulsive. The universe is expanded from Mattis and the Borka robbers to a nearby Asterix-esque village, where village leader Valdir (an unusually flat Pernilla August) tries to solve the robber problem.
PERFECT: The Huldretuses are just as perfectly good-naturedly stupid as only Huldretuses can be. Photo: PROMO/Frida Wendel
It involves bailiffs, footmen, team men and jacks who buzz around the forests more than the peripheral descriptions in the book. With character stories that don’t quite fit into the whole.
The advantage for the series is that the characters you don’t care about can feel the consequences of not doing as Mattis (Christopher Wagelin) and Lovis (Krista Kosonen) remind Ronja: To always be on guard. But it mostly seems like a slightly unclear move to make “Game of Thrones” for the kids.
Nevertheless: This Ronja version is this year’s perfect Easter entertainment when the whole family wants to watch something at the same time. As long as the family’s youngest is older than six or seven. Not least because the only really annoying thing is that the story stops halfway through. There, in good Netflix tradition, no one tells when the rest will come.
This can be difficult to accept as an adult. As a child it is absolutely unbearable. Or to paraphrase the hollretuses:
“Voffers make judgments this way”?