It was the size of the sky that first captivated me. In the British television adaptation of Henning Mankell’s Wallander detective novels, the horizon always seemed somehow lower than it should be. Most of the time, at least two-thirds of the screen was slate grey, or steely blue, or else a deep black stippled with stars. Kenneth Branagh played Mankell’s tortured Swedish detective, his face working hard in the gaps of the sparse script, brooding with his back to all that sky.
This was just the start. Once Branagh’s Wallander had been devoured, there was still the Swedish adaptation of Mankell’s novels to enjoy, and then suddenly I was watching more television with English subtitles than without. The Killing, Borgen, Arne Dahl, The Protectors, The Bridge – Scandinavian television became the reason we stayed at home on Saturday nights.
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