Out of time
DQ visits Oslo to find Vikings and people from the Stone Age and the 19th century wandering the streets of the Norwegian capital. It’s all part of the story of the first original drama from HBO Nordic, Beforeigners. The Barcode area of Oslo takes its name from its row of flashy high-rise buildings, which appear as a series of vertical strips. Companies housed in the area, also known as the Opera Quarter, include multinationals PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte. It screams wealth and prosperity, and is certainly not used to mess tainting its near-sparkling streets. For HBO Europe’s Norwegian drama Beforeigners, however, the upmarket location has been transformed into a jumble of hay, live fowl and other farmyard animals, with wooden pallets carelessly strewn all around. Sandwiched between an edgily designed apartment block and a fitness centre, Vikings are rubbing shoulders with women in 1800s-style bonnets and crinoline skirts, who themselves are sidestepping unkempt cavemen and livestock. Greenlit by HBO Nordic last year, Beforeigners is the premium cablenet’s first Norwegian commission. The premise is simple: around the world, powerful flashes of light have appeared in the ocean, with people from the past – the Stone Age, the Viking era and the late 19th century – emerging as a result. No one can explain the phenomenon, while the anachronistic individuals – dubbed ‘Beforeigners’ – have no idea what’s happened. A few years later, burnt-out police officer Lars Haaland, played by Nicolai Cleve Broch, is paired up with Viking Beforeigner Alfhildr (Krista Kosonen) as … Continue reading Out of time
