The Bridge

Series 1 began with a body found halfway between Sweden and Denmark on the Øresund Bridge linking Malmö to Copenhagen. 

Series 2 ended with Saga turning in her partner Martin for murdering the man who killed his son.

The Bridge is a joint Swedish and Danish TV production. The title refers to the Oresund Bridge between Copenhagen in Denmark and MAlmo in Sweden. 

From the main protagonist's perspective - Saga the narrative is following a linear pattern, but if we were to be asked to focus upon the unknown murder, this would be taking a non-linear narrative style. This is because the 1st scene the audience is presented with, a murder scene, this is therefore not showing the murderer mindset and actions in terms of how he/she murdered the victim and why sh/she chose her. This is portrayed as happening but it is not constructed and presented the audience through the narrative. Instead, the audience is positioned at a stage whereby this has already taken place and are therefore left with the same questions (enigma) as the detective Saga has. 

The way Saga is represented linking her to other female leads in other Nordic Noir texts, therefore creating this intertextuality link is through the way she represented unstereotypically, through her appearances, where she is shown with untidy hair and a lack of make-up, and furthermore, she is represented through contrast to the wider social context in a typically un-feminine job. 

Generic conventions of crime drama in the Bridge:

-Murder and attempted murder/terrorist plot, the countdown to destruction/CCTW footage/police car chase

-Surreal elements 

-Police uniforms, cars, flashing lights and sirens, technology - PCs/mobile phones/evidence bags/clues

-Forensics-gloves, microscopes 

-Plainclothes detective

-Unlikely partnership

-Antisocial detective 

Codes and conventions of Nordic Noir 

-Recurring situations: crime, collecting evidence, interviews with suspects, examining CCTV/photos for suspect identification

Elements of narrative: crime as disruption, enigmas codes in the form of a 'whodunit?' and 'why the crime scene has been meticulously staged?' driven by binary opposites

Style: typical of film Nordic Noir specifically - chiaroscuro lighting, closed frames signifying entrapment, desaturated colour palette, aerie choral soundtrack, emphasis on windows and reflection

Iconography: police uniforms, guns, police cars evidence bags, handcuffs, investigating jargon

Setting: iconic Nordic Noir, the bridge joining 2 cities, incident room, murder scene, police station, prison, lab, bleak mountainous landscapes, leafless trees

Themes: guilt, justice, conscience, crime, punishments, moral dilemma 

Stock characters: plainclothes detectives with personal issues, unlikely partnership, anti-social genius, strict police chief

The serial and linear: nature of the series as a continuous case 

The restricted nature: of the narrative allows the audience to uncover the truth via the clues along with the main protagonists of the drama. The audience also has limited knowledge initially of Sagas backgrounds or about what troubles

Features of postmodernism: 

-Pastiche 

-Paradox

-Bricolage 

-Intertextuality 

These intertextuality references in terms of the Bridge similarities to other Nordic Noir texts, these are such as the 'the killing' that also has a female lead. She also has conflicts, like Saga, between her personal life domestic life. Both feel like they have to put their full commitment into their job, making them both released around the same time, further connoting how in postmodern society, intertextuality occurs between texts borrowing and sharing ideas between each other, this showing how postmodern media is now blurring between similar texts. The audience is further exposed to this Nordic Noir representation of policing meaning that is the reality of policing becomes more real than reality. This is especially because many of the audiences don't have direct experiences with detective work, especially Swedish detective work causing medias representations of it to become a form of hyper reality. 

-Irony

-Black humour 

-Realism 

-Hyper-Reality 

Challenging conventions: 

- the specific traits of Nordic Noir which combine with the standard crime drama approach to create something uniquely different from the norm- the language is plain and deliberately avoid metaphor, the settings often have bleak landscapes, and the mood is dark and morally complex. The genre depicts a tension between the apparently still and bland social surface in the Nordic countries and the murder, misogyny, rape and racism it depicts as lying underneath.  Contrasts with the less subtle approach of standard UK crime drama/

- Supplies strong female models as leading characters throughout the narrative, responsible for making tough decisions against a decidedly bleak/uncaring back group.

-Leading characters are plagued with guild/issues which affect their judgement and therefore make for not only more interesting and nuanced characters but unpredictable situations/scenarios

-Cross-culture between police forces of two decidedly different nations, offers a new look at well-known conventions

-The ambiguous nature of not only the characters but the location too, the Bridge spanning both countries is almost out of character and other-worldly at that not belonging to either country but existing in a form of 'spatial limbo'

- The murders committed as part of the 3rd series enigma construction are stylised in their execution more reminiscent of an art installation - adding class significant depth to the motivations of the unseen antagonist