Crime Up North: The Case of Norway, Finland and Iceland

• Main Author: Norðfjörð, Björn Ægir
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Edinburgh University Press 2015
• Subjects: Norway; Iceland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9780748693184.003.0005

In this chapter I hope to account for the international (literary and filmic) origin of recent Norwegian, Finnish and Icelandic crime films and television series as well as their particular local specificity. I will thus not only be assessing them in relation to their Swedish and Danish counterparts, but also to what I will be simply referring to as the international crime film. It is a norm mostly associated with Hollywood (albeit not limited to it) that is, as regards style, form and narrative structure, for the most part devoid of regional or national specificities. My use of the word ‘generic’ is intended to emphasise this dual nature by referring both to the essentials of a particular genre (crime) and a broad universality. Of particular concern is whether one can pinpoint any particular trajectory in the development of contemporary Norwegian, Finnish and Icelandic crime films made with international aspirations during this dramatic rise of Nordic noir – that still shows no sign of abating.