Case S1 (All 4) [2015]

Posted on February 3, 2017 Updated on February 4, 2017

Contains some general plot details

Icelandic drama Case is one of the latest additions to Channel 4’s Walter Presents foreign drama brand on its digital streaming service All 4. Not only has it been promoted quite heavily on the network’s broadcast channel, it even had the extra accolade of the first episode itself actually being aired on Channel 4, with the remaining eight episodes then released as a online ‘boxset’ exclusive.

The series has been described as being ‘in the spirit of The Killing‘, but it really isn’t. For one thing, the inciting incident that gets the plot underway – the discovery of a 14-year-old ballet student found hanged on the stage of the theatre where she trained – is quickly ruled a suicide, after which the multi-faceted investigation that follows becomes more focussed on what could have driven her to such dark despair and desperation. Less a murder mystery, then, and more a socio-political dramatisation of the pressures and ill-treatment that are too-often inflicted on young girls in today’s modern society, making it closer in spirit to the likes of Ken Loach’s seminal Cathy Comes Home than to Nordic fare we’re used to in the form of Forbrydelsen or The Bridge. Read the rest of this entry »