A lot has changed since the mid-2010s, but one thing that has remained reassuringly steadfast is the ability of Nordic noir to draw us in with mind bending plots, grizzly crime scenes, tangled backstories and brooding atmospherics. So much so that a new streaming platform, Viaplay, has launched, specialising in Nordic noir, alongside an exciting offering of films, TV dramas and comedies, and live sports including La Liga and the United Rugby Championship.
Fans of the genre have come to expect a compulsive, sometimes delectably gruesome alternative to the more placid whodunnits of yore. Compared with your Poirots, Jessica Fletchers and Columbos, the heroes of Nordic noir are fully immersed in the world of the dark crimes they are investigating, and the grim misdeeds aren’t treated as a one-off to be solved in one fell swoop as much as a symptom of a wider social disease. Here, crimes are committed because of a world in which mankind can be cruel and vicious; because of the machinations of politics, and our dislocation from one another. For this reason, Nordic noir tends to portray the world around the detective heroes in some detail, giving us industry, family, local nightlife, and politics. The detectives are creatures of their environment.
