Knutby

I have always said as long as i can remember, never trust everyone completely. I have learned my mistakes from the past, where i trusted people, who seemed to be good hearted. Unfortunately, some people know how to act so good, that you would never imagine that it was all fake. It is like they are 2 different personalities, who does not want people to know who they really are. Many years ago, i actually knew a youth pastor, who´s job was to try and take care of young men and women, and help them in faith. He fooled me as well, when i thought he seemed to be a nice guy. The truth of the matter is, he turned out to protect a pedophile friend of his. I can´t go into details here because of legal matters, since i am not involved personally in this case. All i can say is that i was shocked how he could do this, while working with young people. I have not seen him for many years now, so i have no idea what happened after i found out the truth, but i hope his friend is in jail. I think we all can agree on that every pedophile needs to be behind bars, and never be let out on the streets. We have heard for many years about church scandals, with everything from catholic churches with sex scandals, abuse, taking money from members and using it in their private lives. I am sure that there are good churches out there, who really help poor people, and do a lot for their community. And it is such a shame that criminals, and bad people in general are destroying the image of churches, when we actually have people who try and do something positive. So i never try and judge all congregations, since i still want to believe there are good people out there. But there is one church scandal here in Sweden, that not only shocked our whole country, but people all over the world as well. And that is the murders in the village of Knutby, where a nanny named Sara Svensson confessed shooting both Daniel Linde and Alexandra Fossmo. Daniel survived but was seriously injured, while Alexandra died. They were all members of a church in Knutby, and it turned out that their pastor Helge Fossmo, was charged for the murder of his former wife Heléne Fossmo. Churches across the country was especially shocked, how one small community church could do such horrific crimes. This was back in January of 2004, and ever since then there have been many documentaries, books, interviews with former members who decided to tell the truth. Just recently a new TV series based on the case of Knutby was released on the TV channel CMore ( also avaible on TV4 Play ), and i decided to sit down and watch the whole series. Is this one of the better TV series from Sweden, or should you skip this one and watch something else?

A young woman named Anna (  Alba August ) moves to the small urban area of Knutby, where she is welcome to the local Penestocal church ( Filadephiaförsamlingen i Knutby ). She feels welcome here by the congregation, especially from the very powerful personality of Eva ( Aliette Opheim ) and their pastor Sindre ( Einar Bredefeldt ). But it becomes very clear after a while, that this congregation are dealing with some very disturbing behavior, and use people for their own advantage, that will lead to a very horrific tragedy.

I am actually quite surprised over this TV series. It´s actually better than i expected, and maybe it´s because i don´t enjoy a lot of Swedish TV series in general. There are not a lot of them that i feel hold any bigger quality, especially when it comes to acting. But i have to say, Knutby actually have better acting than i expected, and manage to tell the story of this congregation in an effective way. There are some name changes made, and everything may not be in order with what really happened. And i can accept that, since i still feel that they did a good job though with telling the story, in a similar way to the real case. I have to talk about the best part of this TV series, and that is the acting performance of wonderful Swedish actress Aliette Opheim ( who i especially remember from the TV series Kalifat ) as the character Eva ( based on the person known as Kristi Brud / Åsa Waldau. I have seen a lot of Swedish actors over the year, in films and TV series, and to be honest not a lot of them have impressed me. But i am actually quite shocked how good Aliette Opheim is in the role as Eva. This is exactly the kind of acting i wish we could see more of in Swedish film and TV series. You can tell that she really tried to capture the personality of a very disturbed personality, who should not be in control of a congregation. I have no problem saying that she should win the award for Best Female Actor for her performance, no matter if it happens on Gulbaggegalan, or on any other award show in Scandinavia or in Europe. She definetely deserves respect for this fantastic acting performance. I am also quite surprised to see singer, and actress Amy Deasismont as the character Lilian. Not only is she a perfect match for this character, but she feels very natural in the role as Lillian. Especially in a scene where she tries to convince an old lady to join their church, you can feel the brain washing mentality through her performance, that some churches use to get new members. To be able to do that through acting, clearly shows that she knows how to portrait people who have deep faith. Actress Alba August also deliver a solid performance as the new congregation member Anna. So let´s get into the plot, and if it works close to the truth. What about the disturbing things that happened in this congregation, do we get to see that? We do get to see certain events, even if it is only limited. I wish we could have seen more of the violent behavior that Eva ( Kristi Brud / Åsa Waldau ) actually used towards the members of the church, other than that i can´t complain. Knutby is a great TV series that really shows the danger of religious cult leaders, who should not be running any kind of church at all. This might actually be the best Swedish TV series of this year, and that´s coming from me who is not a fan of Swedish TV series. If only they have added some more details about Eva, and how abusive the real Kristi Brud actually was, i would have given this series a higher rating. But it is still good, and definetely worth watching. Director Goran Kapetanovic ( who directed the powerful TV series Kalifat ) have done a great job telling the story of Knutby. We can never change the past, but we must tell the truth. And this is why the story of Knutby needs to be told, so this could never happen again.

Rating: DDD