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Norway is an immigrant society that does not want to be accused of discrimination against minorities or a lack of integration efforts.

The Oslo police force is particularly proud to have the first colleague with a "multitemporal background": Alfhildr Enginnsdottir (Krista Kosonen) comes from the 11th century, where she led a warlike life as a shieldmaiden.

“Beforeigners” in the ARD media library

One of the questions in the six-part HBO series “Beforeigners”, which can be viewed free of charge in the ARD media library, is whether knowledge of the Old Norse language and hand-to-hand combat skills offer more advantages or disadvantages in the fight against organized crime.

The crazy basic idea of ​​the series is the transfer of the migration theme from space to time, from the global to the historical.

Worldwide there is a mysterious mass immigration from three epochs: Time migrants come from the Stone Age, the Middle Ages, like Alfhildr, or the 19th century.

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The action takes place a few years after the first arrivals, which offers ample opportunity to allude satirically to the cultural conflicts of the present: cavemen who keep goats in the elevator, wild mead parties with skald singing, high-wheeled cylinder porters in rush hour traffic, but also racist graffiti and Discrimination in day-to-day office life when the pre-Christian early-career woman who openly handles her body uses her usual moss instead of expensive sanitary towels.

Nordic Gods on HBO

Alfhildr once offers her police partner Haaland a sandwich during the break, who refuses because it contains gluten.

His explanations leave the Viking woman at a loss.

So he really believes in an evil spirit in food?

Magical thinking of the present meets the religious conflicts from the time of Christianization, when the Nordic world of gods stood against the imported cross.

But even if the Odin worshiper works incognito at the delivery service, he does not escape his predetermined role as a leader.

Finally, a sect emerges that only dresses up as migrants and whose goal of salvation is to flee into the past.

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While the story initially seems to affirm the insurmountability of quasi-ethnic differences - with one's own ancestors becoming the target of xenophobia -, all identity certainties are gradually shaken.

The present meets the 19th century: the Norwegian HBO series "Beforeigners"

Source: HBO Nordic / Eirik Evjen

The clash of conventional crime plots with science fiction and fantasy repeatedly creates both comical and clairvoyant moments with an alienation effect.

Great, for example, the unshakable, sensible patchwork stepfather, who could have sprung from an Ibsen drama.

Would our own history still be integrable today?

In a very subtle way, “Beforeigners” tells of the inner struggle between the duties of the present and the ties of origin.