| Pistvakt – En vintersaga | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Situation comedy |
| Starring | Lennart Jähkel Jacob Nordensson Tomas Norström |
| Opening theme | "Blue and alone" by Weeping Willows |
| Country of origin | Sweden |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 12 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 28–29 minutes (per episode) |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | SVT |
| Original run | 1998 – 2000 |
Pistvakt – En vintersaga (english: Slope guard - A winter fairy tale) was a Swedish television series, produced and aired by SVT subdepartment SVT Drama. It is based on a play by Pistolteatern.
Contents |
The story revolves around three brother ski patrollers; Sven-Erik, Jan-Erik and Olle Marklund. Living and working in the isolated and fictitious village Svartlien, they face the horrors of solitude and dangers of the wild nature. Their father Stor-Erik, missing for decades, is always present as a symbol of perfection and the ultimate idol for the brothers.
The boys' primary tasks are, among others, weather reports and the oiling of the ski-lift. They go about their job with utter determination and never let anything come in between them and the completion of those jobs.
Occasionally, visitors arrive at Svartlien - with the common result that Sven-Erik has to save them from wild animals, avalanches or other dangers. Also living in Svartlien are the boys' mother Gudrun, and her secret admirer Beng-Hans - owner of Beng-Hans Bodega.
Every episode follows quite a strict template. Starting with a speaker telling of the basic plot of the series, the camera pans from a crude model of the mountaintop near the brothers' home to their little house. During the pan, the audience appears for the first (and sometimes only) time in the episode - breaking the fourth wall.
A very common ingredient in the series is the Sven-Erik having to be the rescuer of either his brothers or the guests in the village. The series relies heavily on deadpan humour and running gags.
In the end of every episode the brothers perform a dance in Bengt-Hans Bodega, often to the tune of a classic disco song. After the song, Gudrun generally stays in the bodega, talking to Bengt-Hans, a conversation often filled with innuendo. When Gudrun leaves, Bengt-Hans always exclaims "Oh, Gudrun!".
The brothers are by that time in their triple-level bunkbed, where they discuss the events of the day.
The language of the brothers is a fictitious dialect of Swedish, based on northern dialects, but with a number of neologisms added.
The series was a success and had a follow-up second series, aired in 2000, and a movie (Taglined, roughly translated, "An Albino Western from the White Desert" referring to the snow in the Swedish mountains) in 2005.