Unknown Swedish war history in “The Swedish Link”

This is a review. The author is responsible for the opinions in the text.

“It’s a miracle!”

“No, it’s bureaucracy.”

As usual, Henrik Dorsin delivers his dry line with impeccable timing. He plays Gösta Engzell, an employee of the Swedish Foreign Ministry who saves many Jews from the Nazis with the help of so-called “temporary” passports. Using paper drills as a weapon, this rarely sung hero caused micro-chaos in German embassies in the Nordic countries, inspiring Raoul Wallenberg’s oft-celebrated “Protection Pass.”

“The Swedish connection” learns to follow real events, but the director and screenplay duo Thérèse Ahlbeck and Marcus Olsson have obviously dramatized reality and edited it so that it fits into the appropriate length of a feature film.

Sir Väs, the Nazi-hugging Cabinet Secretary Söderström (played by Jonas Karlsson) in the story, is a fictional character who embodies Sweden’s complicity. Engzell’s carefree colleague Rut Vogel (Sissela Benn), on the other hand, is probably flirting with the demands of our time for equality in front of the camera.

The ensemble consists of celebrities, spiced up with an unexpectedly large number of comedians for the topic.

The ensemble consists of celebrities, spiced up with an unexpectedly large number of comedians for the topic. Bo Widerberg took a risk at the time when he gave the lead role in “Mannen på taket” to prison joker Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt – which, as you know, turned out to be a stroke of genius.

Here we find a total of three humorists. Johan Glans also appears alongside Dorsin and Benn. The first two get so much screen time that they manage to make people out of their roles, but when the water-combed glans appears in just a few short scenes, my eyes automatically search for David Batra in the “Kvarteret Skatan” wig.

In other words, “The Swedish Link” is a film with a split personality. A dangerous mix of (over)clear television theater, historical drama and occasional comedy – as if the filmmakers simply couldn’t help themselves when they still had a lot of professional jokers in the room.

But it is like that on the other hand, symptomatic of the divided narrative about Sweden’s actions in the Second World War. The pre-Hitler desperation means that, like the Norwegians, we can’t be bothered, and a film that celebrates our coalition government’s balancing act on a fine political line (which nevertheless saved many lives) would probably be a hard sell. It’s better to make an educational drama in the main subject, with generic villains and a popular fighter with traits of the old henpecked hero Little Fridolf.

What’s a bit annoying, however, is that the filmmakers (or perhaps a concerned bureaucrat at Netflix?) don’t trust the audience to understand the film’s dialogue. Supposedly “difficult” words and concepts like “precedent” and “Gordian knot” are therefore explained in funny graphics or loud lines. It only happens a few times, but often enough to put an inhibiting black* on the illusion.

(*black = ankle bracelet, block).

See more: Three more Swedish films about the Second World War: “Ride i natt” (1942), “1939” (1989), “Good evening, Mr. Wallenberg” (1990).).

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