Netflix Just Quietly Released 2024's Best Disaster Movie
A Swedish film that will appeal to fans of both family dramas and the disaster genre.
Summary
- On February 16, a new gripping movie was released on Netflix.
- Based on events in the real town in Sweden, the plot follows a sinister industrial disaster caused by the development of a local mine.
- Despite mixed reviews, the film conveys the realistic experiences of people caught up in such a situation.
Netflix has long relied not only on Hollywood but also on foreign productions, and Scandinavian films and shows are not uncommon guests in the streaming service's library. TV series produced in Sweden have been particularly successful. Many of you may have heard of the teen drama Young Royals, the live-action adaptation of Fredrik Backman's novel Anxious People, and the true crime drama The Unlikely Murderer. But what about disaster films and series?
Among the Scandinavian countries, it is primarily the Norwegians who can boast of films in this genre, as from 2015 to 2021 they released a full-length movie trilogy consisting of The Wave, The Quake and The Burning Sea.
Sweden, however, decided to put their own spin on the genre by releasing a film last year called Avgrunden, or The Abyss in English, which is partly based on real events. It was recently added to the Netflix library and we highly recommend watching it as it is almost the best representative of the disaster movie genre per se.
The Sinking City and How to Maintain Work-Life Balance
Even if you're not involved in the Swedish entertainment industry, the many names of the cast will certainly tell you a lot. Tuva Novotny, best known for her role as Cassie Sheppard in Alex Garland 's sci-fi horror Annihilation, starred in the film. Joining her in the movie were Peter Franzén of Vikings fame, as well as Felicia Maxime and, note, Edvin Ryding, known to Netflix subscribers from Young Royals (Ryding, remember, played the lead role of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Sweden).
But back to The Abyss! In this Swedish thriller, we follow Frigga, played by Novotny. She works as a security manager at the extremely dangerous (and real) Kiruna Mine, the largest underground iron ore mine in the world, located in Lapland, Sweden's northernmost province. The town of Kiruna, with a population of about 20,000, is known not only for its mine, but also for the fact that it has caused the town to be gradually relocated: in 2020, there was a major earthquake due to the mine's development. As a result, the town is still being rebuilt and relocated two miles from its original location.
In the movie, however, something horrible happens: Kiruna is in danger of sinking underground. Frigga, already struggling to balance her work and her shattered personal life, finds her world turned upside down (both literally and figuratively), and now she must save not only Kiruna, but also her son, who went missing right after the disaster began.
A Worthwhile Disaster B-Movie
The movie's ratings are not high at all: a measly 22% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. However, this is probably less a problem with the movie itself than with its perception. The Abyss is in no way comparable to Roland Emmerich's disaster movies or the kaiju genre like Godzilla, directed by Ishirō Honda to Hideaki Anno and Takashi Yamazaki. It's more of a modest B-movie, but that makes it a very worthy representative of the genre.
For one thing, despite its setting, The Abyss is first and foremost a family melodrama about relationships tested by natural disasters. The only difference is that these cataclysms are grounded, adding realism to the story, rather than epic scenes packed with VFX for entertainment value.
Second, the visual effects themselves in the movie are by no means bad. The destruction is believable, and the underground scenes will make even those who have never been claustrophobic shudder.
Swedish cinema is controversial and definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but The Abyss is a great example of a realistic disaster movie.