Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Sweden was handful of the rare nations who remained ‘neutral’ in World War II and one unknown foreign ministry bureaucrat found a ‘Swedish Connection’ loophole to save thousands of Jews from Nazi persecution.
Directed by Thérèse Ahlbeck and Marcus Olsson, The Swedish Connection opens with a comedic scene of Sweden mistaking the arrival of a Nazi ship for an act of war and invasion. The story then shifts its focus to the primary protagonist, Gösta Engzell (Henrik Dorsin), the low-profile head of the legal department at Sweden’s Foreign Ministry. He quietly spearheads a small team working to rescue as many Jews as possible, an effort filled with obstacles, including dramatic negotiations with maniacal Nazis.
Henrik Dorsin’s portrayal of Gösta Engzell is a double-edged sword for The Swedish Connection: on one hand, he perfectly captures a character who seems far too ordinary, average, and forgettable to accomplish something historic; on the other, the character’s seemingly dull personality may fail to impress viewers who expect more charisma and heft from the lead in a World War II drama. For me, it worked.
Rut Vogl, a German woman, joins Engzell’s legal department and acts as the catalyst inspiring the team to take on cases involving Jews seeking asylum or assistance from Sweden. Jonas Karlsson plays Staffan Söderblom, an influential cabinet secretary who attempts to block Engzell’s team from pursuing their work on Jewish cases to ensure the country does not invite Hitler’s wrath.
No one truly stands out in The Swedish Connection and that is precisely the point. The film engagingly shows how a handful of bureaucrats, who could easily have remained pencil-pushers buried under mounting piles of paperwork, instead chose to step beyond their job descriptions to help people with whom they had no direct connection. What could have easily devolved into a trite, melodramatic tearjerker of a World War story is instead rendered by the writers as an unexpectedly uplifting tragicomedy.
The cinematography feels strikingly contemporary. At times, scenes are shot in a style reminiscent of The Office, giving certain moments a mockumentary-like tone despite the film being inspired by real events and dealing with grave subject matter. While this stylistic choice may divide audiences, it effectively highlights the contrast between the mundane routines of Swedish civil servants and the catastrophic realities unfolding elsewhere in Europe. The understated, almost bureaucratic visual language reinforces the idea that extraordinary moral courage can emerge from the most ordinary of settings.
From its exploration of Sweden’s delicate relationship with Germany to its portrayal of internal Foreign Office politics and press censorship, ‘The Swedish Connection’ unfolds as a brisk, tightly constructed drama about war, diplomacy, and moral responsibility. The makers refrain from showing any war time violence, or action, putting the entire focus on the Swedish side of the tale, and yet, they manage to strike a strong emotional chord.
Statistically speaking, Gösta Engzell and his team helped save more Jews than Oskar Schindler, yet it has taken more than 80 years for their story to receive a full feature film treatment. Perhaps that delay is fitting. Nearly a century on, there are still overlooked acts of quiet heroism waiting to be rediscovered, and this film serves as a reminder that history’s most powerful stories do not always belong to the loudest names.
Rating: 8 on 10. Watch ‘The Swedish Connection’ on Netflix.
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