Gunnar Iversen
New Enemies, New Cold Wars: Reimagining Occupation and Military Conflict in Norway
On 5 October 2015, the Norwegian TV series Okkupert (Occupied) premiered. The series is a political thriller set in a near future. Oil production is low in the Middle East, and the United States has withdrawn from NATO after having achieved energy independence. In Norway, after a devastating natural disaster, the Green Party wins the election, and Norway decides to cut off all fossil fuel production. In desperation, the EU calls on Russia to initiate a velvet glove invasion of Norway, forcing the Norwegian government to resume oil and gas production. Okkupert depicts how the government as well as a number of ordinary people react to the Russian occupation and the growing presence of Russian secret agents and soldiers in Norway.
The series was based on an idea by popular Norwegian crime novelist Jo Nesbø, who also wrote an outline for the first episodes. The ten episodes in the first season were directed by well-known Norwegian film directors: Erik Skjoldbjærg, Pål Sletaune, John Andreas Andersen, Eva Sørhaug and Erik Richter Strand. Okkupert is the most expensive Norwegian TV drama production to date, and it has been sold to numerous European countries. It is also available on Netflix in North America. Internationally, Okkupert is the best-known Norwegian TV series besides Lilyhammer (2012 – 2014), a mild social critique of both Norway and the US in the form of a crime comedy. The series has been categorized as an example of a special “high-end drama” and “event television” (Engelstad 2016). It was not only given a prominent spot in the prime time schedule of the public service broadcaster TV2 in Norway, but also worked to build competitive brand identity for the broadcaster through production values and controversial themes.
A big success in Norway, despite lukewarm reviews in the major newspapers, Okkupert immediately attracted international attention and protest, especially from Russia. The Russian ambassador to Norway, Vyacheslav Pavlovsky, wrote a statement immediately after the first episode was broadcast, protesting against the depiction of a Russian occupation: “It is certainly a shame that, in the year of the 70th anniversary of the victory in World War II, the authors have seemingly forgotten the Soviet Army’s heroic contribution to the liberation of northern Norway from Nazi occupation and decided, in the worst traditions of the Cold War, to scare Norwegian spectators with the nonexistent threat from the east” (Tjernshaugen 2015; qtd in Engelstad 2016). In his statement, the Russian ambassador links the series not only to the Cold War but also to World War II, and these two historical periods form the backdrop for the events in the series. The international controversy did not change the popularity of the series in Norway, and a second season was broadcast in the autumn of 2017.1
This chapter analyzes the representation of occupation, resistance, political pressure, and the moral dilemmas of politicians and ordinary people in Okkupert. It compares the new political thriller with the way Norwegian films from 1946 to 2016 have depicted the five-year German occupation as well as the Cold War. The chapter will also briefly discuss the new series in the light of the representation of the Cold War in Norwegian film culture more broadly. It argues that the representation of the Russian occupation of Norway in Okkupert is a reimagining of the German occupation during World War II, while at the same time Cold War images are used in a complex way to depict the new enemy. The series also comes after the Russian takeover of the Crimea, and although the series does not seem to suggest any deliberate warning about new Russian aggression, this is an important context for the viewers. Past and future merge with the present, as this new enemy is seen through the representations of older enemies, also reimagining new political and legal concerns like the questions of justified terrorism and the threat of fanaticism.
1 Okkupert
The first episode of the series Okkupert starts with a close-up of a shaken prime minister of Norway, Jesper Berg, played by Henrik Mestad, who walks along a path in the woods, following a trail of blood in the snow. After a very brief introduction to some of the central characters in the series, the events that have led to the prime minister being on the path in the woods are shown.
After the public announcement of the end of the age of oil and other fossil fuels in Norway, and the opening of a first new power plant driven by Thorium, a new and sustainable climate-friendly energy source, the Norwegian prime minister is kidnapped by unknown men. He is taken by helicopter to an isolated area in a forest, where he receives video calls from the EU commissioner and the Swedish prime minister. They tell him that the Russian government has agreed to help the EU in making sure that Norway restarts oil and gas production. At the same time, Russian military forces take control over oil and gas installations in the North Sea. The prime minister does not want to cooperate until an old man with a dog appears on the snowy path close to the spot where the helicopter has landed. He leans out of the window and shouts to the man for help, but the armed Russians immediately shoot the old man. The witnessing of the cold-blooded killing of an innocent bystander convinces the prime minister that military resistance is useless. Returning to the capital Oslo and a government meeting, he avoids an armed conflict and issues a second public announcement, acknowledging the presence of Russians in the country but toning down the invasion of the Russian troops. “We are completely alone,” he says to his fellow cabinet members, and this forces the Norwegian government to sit still while the country is slowly being taken over by Russian military forces.
The first episode of Okkupert sets the tone for the whole series. An invasion takes place, but in the beginning few notice anything. The only immediate result is the fact that the prime minister and government change their policy, from turning off all oil and gas production to turning it back on again because of the desperate need for fossil fuel energy in the EU countries. In addition, the number of Russians in Norway increases.
In the first season of the series, the invasion is rendered either through events involving the prime minister and his cabinet, or a small number of ordinary citizens: a restaurant owner who is about to go bankrupt and lose her restaurant, her husband, who is a journalist with a small newspaper, one of the Secret Service men that guard the prime minister, and the leader of the Secret Service, a middle-aged woman suffering from an incurable disease. These protagonists all react to the invasion in different ways. However, as the presence of the Russian military becomes more and more visible, and the pressures on ordinary people as well as the elected government become more tangible, the theme of resistance becomes increasingly important. Early on, a lone soldier acts, and the King’s Guard protest, while a small number of soldiers and citizens form a resistance movement. People from the army and the police slowly start helping out what at first is a small group of young men.
Half way through Okkupert, the theme of resistance becomes the main motif. The Norwegian police try to hunt down these resistance fighters in order to avoid a direct military conflict between Norway and Russia, but the Russian intelligence and military forces are also looking for the small group, whose numbers grow steadily. However, the first season of the series comes to a dramatic ending when some of the most fanatic resistance fighters kidnap the Russian ambassador Sidorova. The first season ends dramatically upon the hunt for the cell of fanatics that keep the Russian ambassador as hostage, threatening to kill her unless the Russians leave the country. If the Norwegian police and the Secret Service cannot find Sidorova in time, war will break out. However, a Secret Service man manages to locate the group on a ship and rescues the Russian ambassador, preventing an open military conflict on Norwegian soil. At the same time, in a dramatic cross cutting, the Norwegian Prime Minister is taken by a group of men and once more forced into a helicopter. This time, though, it is not an enemy group, but the resistance movement who are taking the Prime Minister to a safe area. In the very last scene of the season, the Prime Minister walks up to a waiting Norwegian general who says to him: “Are you ready to fight for your country?” The last image is a close-up of the Prime Minister, with a look of ambivalence on his face, surrounded by the bustle of military personnel and vehicles in the background.
2 Norwegian Occupation Drama
The most important context in which to situate Okkupert is Norwegian occupation drama. In many ways, this is the lens through which the future Russian occupation is seen. The series uses this Norwegian film genre, and the different motifs that run through its depiction and discussion of the 1940 to 1945 German occupation of Norway as a way of discussing current political concerns and anxieties. In this sense, occupation drama is the main background for the reimagining of military conflict and occupation in the TV series.
Between 1946 and 2016, nearly 30 occupation dramas were made in Norway, focusing on the collective struggle on the home front. In addition, a number of other fiction films have dealt more briefly with the war years and the war experience, and there have also been a number of feature-length as well as shorter documentaries about World War II. In particular, fictionalized versions have been important in interpreting the war and disseminating images about this pivotal period in modern Norwegian history. The Norwegian occupation drama genre includes highly symbolic stories of heroism, combat, resistance, ethnicity and identity, but also collaboration, lack of heroism, everyday life under the occupation, and specifically male and female experiences. The most famous occupation dramas have been staged in highly symbolic national landscapes, often the barren mountains, but also in everyday urban milieus (cf. Iversen 2011: 145 – 155, Iversen 2012, Haugland Sørensen 2015).
Even though there have been a number of war films made in Norway, the genre of the occupation drama has gone through significant changes. Its development can be divided into four distinct phases, each representing a different interpretation of the war years with a particular focus: on trauma (1946), on ordinary collective heroism (1948 – 1962), on revisionism and the critique of earlier heroic stories (1962 – 1993), and on extraordinary individual heroism (1993 – 2016). Although these categories are not all-inclusive, and there is a short transitional period in the late 1950s and early 1960s, very few films can be said to contradict the general trend of the period during which they were made (Iversen 2012: 239 – 240). The most recent phase focuses on extraordinary individual heroism, and some of the greatest Norwegian feature film successes in recent years belong to this category. Examples are Max Manus (Max Manus: Man of War)(dirs. Espen Sandberg and Joachim Rønning, 2008), about the real-life resistance fighter Max Manus, and Kongens nei (The King’s Choice) (dir. Erik Poppe, 2016), about the choice of King Haakon VII not to surrender to the German occupation forces and go into exile in England.
Okkupert combines aspects of all four types of occupation drama. It deals with the trauma of occupation, when all boundaries are unclear, and also discusses different types of collaboration, a central aspect of the revisionist phase. However, the TV series also blends ordinary collective heroism with extraordinary individual heroism. The beginning of the series focuses on trauma, and it ends by focusing on single characters that act bravely and responsibly in the new traumatic situation. World War II is present in the series in the many allusions to the war years as well as the themes and motifs that the series takes from occupation drama but reimagines in the context of a vague future sit...
