Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsThis is simply Russian propaganda
Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2023
Filmed in 2015, this is a poorly edited mishmash of comments and interviews with Swedish socialist polemicists. In short, the premise of the film is that a Russian sub grounded off the Norwegian, and other sub sightings were simply ruses coordinated by the US government to undermine the former Soviet Union. Or, another way of saying it, the film's narrative is that the US and Swedish Elite are bad, and that the Soviet Union was a good friend of Sweden with the US undermining that relationship, so the Swedish Government would cozy up to the US as an ally.
It is fairly comical. It would be naive to think that Russian subs, or anyone's subs never mistakenly or purposefully violate another country's waters. Now ... to this very day .. feel free to do an internet search on the phrase "Russian Sub off Swedish coast" or just, "Russian sub off coast" ... or for that matter "US sub off coast," and see how many sub alerts there are to this very day.
What makes this anti US, anti Swedish elite, pro Russian film so funny is watching the film in its current context ... just 8 years after this film was made. Russia has invaded Ukraine, threatened the West militarily, somehow magically a Russian sub was in the area when the undersea Nordtream pipeline erupted stopping the flow of energy to the West, the Russian government reduced the flow of hydrocarbon energy to Europe spiking costs and throwing countries into recession or at the least slower growth. Russia has threatened to turn off energy entirely. Now, all the countries that made themselves dependent on Russian oil and gas are scrambling to rebuild at least a little bit energy independence.
But hey, subs off Sweden's Coast were simply a ruse, a manipulation of Sweden to ally with the US. The filmmakers didn't want Sweden to be in bed with the US or Nato. The underlying hatred of all things US and capitalist by one of the Swedish interviewees is obvious. Yet, today ... Sweden is begging to be let into NATO because they understand how vulnerable they are to Russian invasion.
But, there were no subs doing intelligence runs....