When Harry met Nesbe: the writer introduced the series "Detective Hole"
Writer Yu Nesbe wrote the script and showrunner of the first series about Harry Hole, the hero of the most popular detective series, almost entirely published in Russia, as well as in the rest of the world. After the failure of "The Snowman", a 2017 film starring Michael Fassbender, the creators took the series as seriously as possible: the writer personally reworked his novel "Pentagram" and participated in all stages of production, starring leading Norwegian artists, the soundtrack was written by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, and rock legends sound behind the scenes. The Doors and Ramones level. "Detective Hole" claims to be the most sophisticated detective thriller of the season, and it has an official Russian dubbing. Izvestia analyzes the components of the success of the series.
How the series "Detective Hole" originated
As of the end of 2021, the number of copies of books sold in the world by Norwegian Julius Nesbe was approximately 50 million. It is difficult to say how many of them are a series of novels about detective Harry Hole, but most likely a significant part, because this is his most popular and, perhaps, favorite character. 13 novels have been written about him, and the 14th will be released this year. Of course, it is strange that only one film "The Snowman" has been released about Hall so far, although many films have been shot based on Nesbe's other works: "Bounty Hunters" (film and TV series), "Killer Heat", "Hanging Sun", the scandalous TV series "Occupied" and much more, plus There are several big projects in the works with stars of the level of Benedict Cumberbatch, Jake Gyllenhaal, Eva Green, Oscar Isaac and Bryan Cranston.
It's all the fault of "The Snowman," the 2017 thriller film starring Michael Fassbender as Harry Hole, and the rest of the cast was very impressive: Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, J.K. Simmons, Val Kilmer, and others. But the film failed miserably at the box office and received such devastating press that the copyright holder, Working Title Studio, preferred to lie low and start working on the mistakes. And the main thing that her producers understood was that Nesbe needed to be personally involved in the adaptation.
The writer set to work, taking as a basis the fifth novel about the Hole "Pentagram" (no, you don't need to read it before watching) and adding a lot of details from other books (also not necessary if you haven't read it yet). Reluctantly, Working Title and Netflix abandoned the idea of shooting in the United States and agreed that the film would be in Norwegian and starring Norwegians, although this, of course, is a risk. After all, the project is big, designed for a global audience, and no matter what Netflix says about strengthening its presence in Europe, it still wouldn't hurt to have a couple of Hollywood superstars in the project. And now the most famous people in the credits, after Yu Nesbe himself, are Nick Cave and his longtime collaborator and friend Warren Ellis, who wrote the darkest music they can for the series.
How did "Detective Hole" turn out?
Now Harry Hole is played by Tobias Zantelman. Like the other actors in the film, he is Norway's number one star. Actually, he is quite famous in the world for the films "Kon-Tiki", "A simple fool's business", "Stealing horses", played in the Hollywood "Hercules" and the TV series "Crossing the Atlantic", but still he is not at all a Fassbender sex symbol. For most viewers, all the faces here will be new — and at the same time, if a person has read at least something about Harry Hole, they will be completely familiar. Yes, the magic of the series is that we now see Hole's misadventures exactly as Yu Nesbe himself sees them, this is the author's version. And she's stunning.
Do you remember the recent scandal when Matt Damon publicly accused Netflix of making the first few minutes of any project as intense and dynamic as possible? So, "Detective Hole" breaks all records in this sense, although streaming would hardly require anything from an author of Nesbe's level. In the first few minutes of the film, there will be a very difficult and obviously very expensive action scene with a helicopter, an overturning car, collisions - and the terrible death of Hole's partner, because the hero himself was drunk at the wheel. And then they'll give us a robbery scene right away, where a masked man timed the safe opening, but the clerk didn't have time, and the criminal shot the woman. And he shot her again, and again: This Hole is watching the old recording over and over again, trying to figure out who is there under the mask.
The series "Detective Hole" does not stand on ceremony with the viewer at all, there will always be someone being killed in the frame - cruelly, sophisticatedly, sadistically. And then, together with the investigators, we have to examine the corpses in search of evidence. A typical Scandinavian detective, would you say? Partly, but not quite. If only because by the end of the first episode, Nesbe will sacrifice one of the main characters in order to point a finger at one of the police officers and say: this is not just a cop, but a member of an occult sect, a murderer who will now always be next to Hole, and Hole, who almost immediately figured him out, is still very He won't be able to prove anything for a long time.
And this leads us to the fact that the detective line itself is not so important here. Hole himself is important, it's his soul that is the true plot of the series. In the beginning, we see him as a cute weirdo who doesn't use the elevator and carries a flask of whiskey in his inner pocket to test his will: after that car accident, he no longer drinks. At the same time, he is a brilliant detective and completely fearless, and detains criminals using the methods of Sledge Hammer from the cult TV series "Sledgehammer".
But everything is going against him: loved ones are dying, the case is not being investigated, and even this abnormal heat of +31 degrees for Norway, which allows Hole to flaunt his bare torso, but it is clearly destructive for his brain. And Hole breaks down, becomes an antihero. He ruins his career, destroys his relationship with the woman he loves and her son Oleg, who has already become almost like his own. The series "Detective Hole" actually tells about the disintegration of a strong personality and her attempts to put herself back together and start acting again. Therefore, Nesbe calmly resorts to cliches and platitudes in the field of police life, but in everything that concerns Hole's wounded soul, he is serious and deep.
It's very spectacular, dynamic, violent and psychological. It's loud, because legendary rock compositions, Cave's fresh music, and gunshots with roaring engines should unsettle, excite, and enhance the permanent shock that Nesbe created for the series. Of course, the series works best with the original track, but for the huge Russian-speaking fan base, Netflix has made an official dubbing, although the Russian subtitles surprise with a large number of typos, which is unusual for the platform's projects. But, as one Western reviewer noted, if in "The Snowman" you always wanted to change the channel and see what else was on, then in the case of "Detective Hole" you forget for a few hours that there is a remote control. Very accurate: shows with such a degree of intensity are extremely rare, and this is clearly more than just a film adaptation for fans of the Scandinavian detective story.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
