Norway 'retarded cousin who won the lottery'
NTB/The Local - [email protected]
Published: 5 Mar, 2015 CET.
Updated: Thu 5 Mar 2015 13:01 CET
An upcoming Swedish film is likely to ruffle some feathers when it is released in Norway later this year, given a Swedish character’s description of Norway as “a retarded cousin who has won the lottery”.
Svenskjävel, released in English as ‘Underdog’, was a runner-up for the best Nordic film of 2015 at the Gothenburg Film Festival.
It tells the story of Dino, a 19-year-old Swede, who like hundreds of thousands of her compatriots, is lured to Oslo by the high salaries, and ends up having an affair with the father in the family which employs her as a housekeeper.
Dino’s attack on Norwegians (which is actually close to what many Swedes actually think), does not come unprovoked.
“I think it’s karma,” a family friend of her employer argues, as he swills his whisky. “During the war the Swedes were just standing there bowing to the Germans like prostitutes.
“My life is so much better now when I get my coffee served to me in the morning by a Swede. And when I take a shit, I know there's a Swede to clean it up for me.”
Another friend then asks what the Swede in the room thinks.
“Sweden likes Norway,” Dino says. ”We just see you as mentally disabled cousins who have won the lottery. We don’t begrudge you that.”
The film, which was shot in Oslo in 2013, is scheduled to premiere in Sweden at the end of this month.
The film stars Bianca Kronlöf as Dino, and the Norwegian Henrik Rafaelsen as her Norwegian employer.
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Svenskjävel, released in English as ‘Underdog’, was a runner-up for the best Nordic film of 2015 at the Gothenburg Film Festival.
It tells the story of Dino, a 19-year-old Swede, who like hundreds of thousands of her compatriots, is lured to Oslo by the high salaries, and ends up having an affair with the father in the family which employs her as a housekeeper.
Dino’s attack on Norwegians (which is actually close to what many Swedes actually think), does not come unprovoked.
“I think it’s karma,” a family friend of her employer argues, as he swills his whisky. “During the war the Swedes were just standing there bowing to the Germans like prostitutes.
“My life is so much better now when I get my coffee served to me in the morning by a Swede. And when I take a shit, I know there's a Swede to clean it up for me.”
Another friend then asks what the Swede in the room thinks.
“Sweden likes Norway,” Dino says. ”We just see you as mentally disabled cousins who have won the lottery. We don’t begrudge you that.”
The film, which was shot in Oslo in 2013, is scheduled to premiere in Sweden at the end of this month.
The film stars Bianca Kronlöf as Dino, and the Norwegian Henrik Rafaelsen as her Norwegian employer.
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