Life is Belief & Struggle - Ahmed Shawqi

Sunday, January 24, 2016

I watched Occupied so you won't have to.


The daughter and I have an allergy to the cold so our post-shabat ritual is to watch television together. I just watched the most ridiculous show television series on Netflix; Occupied. She picked it. I asked her what it was about. Norway turns off its gas and oil production in the ultimate greenie move so the EU asks Russia to invade.
I started to laugh, I mean really? Why didn’t the EU ask Britain or even Germany?

I am told this show was a hit in Norway, and it is also apparent from watching that Norwegians have a really exaggerated sense of their own importance. I mean, why would the Russians even bother? It would be easy enough for the Russian to just sell oil and gas to the EU. It’s a win-win for everyone - the Russians make money and the EU gets its gas and oil. Besides, invasions are expensive and after watching half the series it really was much of an invasion. No soldiers or tanks in the street but the Russian patronage did save a restaurant across the embassy from bankruptcy.

Of course, the Norwegians are outraged against the non-visible Russian occupation and lack of tanks and soldiers in the street occupation. A group of resistance fighters called the Free Norway movement manages to rise. A group is a bit of an overstatement. The entire membership of Free Norway movement consists of 2 freedom fighters. A former soldier who attempted to assassinate the Russian Ambassador but somehow manages to be released to lead the resistance (we never learn how exactly he pulled that off) and the teenage son of a former political refugee from Chechnya.

The teenager’s Dad kills himself in a Norwegian jail after receiving a 2 year prison sentence for vehicle manslaughter when he accidentally ran over and killed a Russian embassy worker. Instead, the Dad should have tried to kill the Russian Ambassador. Apparently, that kind of thing isn’t jail worthy...The two get their ideological talking points from a university professor. My bad, I forgot one. A young university law student clerking at a court gets caught trying to steal information on security warrants. She doesn’t go to jail but has to face the university justice...uhm.

There is an utterly strange and pacifist vibe to the entire show. At one point my daughter asked how these people were the descendants of Vikings. I pointed out that the Norsemen who went Viking didn’t stay there. Now I get why. I would have gone Viking too.

This has got to be the strangest show I have watched. Ironically, the acting isn’t bad and obviously the production values are very high. The interior design makes the entire country look like one giant Ikea display which is kind of bizarre in its own way. Imagine an entire country having only one design style or a MacDonald’s that is totally Ikea-ized. Anyway, I won’t finish it. I only watched as much as I do owing to the train wreck phenomena, I just couldn’t believe it was happening. The plot is ridiculous and not in a humorous good way. Now Lillyhammer was hysterically funny show set in Norway. Netflix canceled it last summer but I get it. Liberals don’t like being made funny of, and in light of the ongoing asylum crisis in Europe the show put on display everything wrong with the culture of multi-cult. Anyway, 3 seasons are still available to watch.





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