Rating: C
Dir: Richard Holm
Star: Tuva Novotny, Kardo Razzazi, Felicia Maxime, Peter Franzén
a.k.a. Avgrunden
In addition to When Chinese Animals Attack, I feel I may need to start another archive: When Scandinavian Geological Formations Attack. We’ve had The Wave, The Quake, and could arguably throw in The Tunnel and Cutterhead too. Now Sweden gets in on the disaster porn act, and has a tailor-made location in the northern town of Kiruna, home to the world’s largest iron ore mine. In 2004, it was decided the town needed to be relocated due to subsidence, and in 2020 a 4.9 magnitude earthquake was caused by the underground activities. The film basically takes these two incidents, and turns both of them up to eleven, with the original version of the town collapsing into mining induced sinkholes.
The human face of this catastrophe is Frigga Vibenius (Novotny), the safety manager at the mine. In accordance with the rules of Scandinoir heroines, she is dedicated to her work, to the detriment of her family life and relationships. She’s separated from husband Tage (Franzén), is trying to start afresh with fireman Dabir Ayobi (Razzazi), and has a fraught relationship with eco-warrior daughter Mika (Maxime). Who is gay, because nowadays, and in accordance with the rules of Netflix, somebody must be. Meanwhile, son Simon has gone missing, which becomes of increasing concern, as the disaster expands in scope. After Frigga escapes a mine cave-in, she has to work with both Tage and Dabir, who don’t exactly like each other for obvious reasons, to locate and rescue Simon.
The sinkhole stuff is adequate, rather than well-handled, and with only one major scene (top) of the expected large-scale urban carnage. There’s rather more going on beneath the surface, and the claustrophobic intensity down there might be the movie’s strongest weapon. What definitely is not, is the clichéd family drama. This is nothing we haven’t seen many times before, in intent, execution and resolution. You can virtually check off the boxes along with the story e.g. heroic sacrifice, lesbian fridging, annoying kids, questionable choices. For instance, you’re a teenager looking to party, and a dangerous rift zone on the edge of an industrial facility, is really the best place you can come up with?
I am curious as to whether or not it was made with the co-operation of the mine. It certainly looks convincing, and some of it was clearly shot in Kiruna (though it appears another mine stood in for the facility). But it’s hard to imagine any corporation being on board with a fictional story which not only holds them responsible for a disaster, a character also explicitly says, “not even the Green Party will talk about how the industry is responsible for most of Sweden’s emissions.” Coming soon: The Bhopal Story, a Union Carbide co-production? Or maybe I’m underestimating Scandinavian accountability. I am not averse to further entries, but this Swedish film seems to lack the bite present in the ones made by their Norwegian neighbours. If not a disaster, it probably needs… well, more disaster.