Åsa-Nisse
Encyclopedia
Åsa-Nisse is a Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 literary character created by Stig Cederholm. The character first appeared in the weekly magazine "Tidsfördriv" in 1944, and later in a series of 20 films, produced between 1949 and 1969. In 1960 it also became a comic series, which is still produced and published periodically in its own magazine. A new Åsa-Nisse film was released in 2011.

Concept

The character Åsa-Nisse, literally Nils on the Ridge or Ridge-Nisse, is a somewhat elderly man living with his wife Eulalia on a farm in the countryside village of Knohult in Småland
Småland
' is a historical province in southern Sweden.Småland borders Blekinge, Scania or Skåne, Halland, Västergötland, Östergötland and the island Öland in the Baltic Sea. The name Småland literally means Small Lands. . The latinized form Smolandia has been used in other languages...

. To the dismay of his wife, Åsa-Nisse never really seems to produce an honest days work, and instead his activities seem to focus on various antics where he is accompanied by his friend and side-kick Klabbarparn. One of their favourite activities is poaching
Poaching
Poaching is the illegal taking of wild plants or animals contrary to local and international conservation and wildlife management laws. Violations of hunting laws and regulations are normally punishable by law and, collectively, such violations are known as poaching.It may be illegal and in...

, while managing to stay one step ahead of the law, personified by the local policeman. Other characters include Knohultarn and Sjökvist, the local merchant. Much of the humor, particularly in the original stories, is derived from the characters' peculiar dialect.

Actors

John Elfström portrayed Åsa-Nisse in 19 of the 20 films and Arthur Rolén played the side-kick Klabbarparn (Ågren) in 18. Brita Öberg played Åsa-Nisse's wife Eulalia and Mona Geijer-Falkner
Mona Geijer-Falkner
Mona Geijer-Falkner was a Swedish film actress. She appeared in 101 films between 1920 and 1969.-Selected filmography:* Music in Darkness * Only a Mother * Two Living, One Dead...

 played Klabbarparn's wife Kristin. Fourteen of the films were directed by Ragnar Frisk.

Kjell Bergqvist
Kjell Bergqvist
Kjell Bergqvist , born 23 February 1953 in Enskede, Stockholm County; Swedish actor.Bergqvist finished Dramatens elevskola in 1973 and made his debut in En enkel melodi and Jack. He has since cooperated for many years with scriptwriter and director Ulf Malmros...

 plays Åsa-Nisse in the new 2011 film Åsa-Nisse-Wälkom to Knohult. This is the first Åsa-Nisse film since 1969.

Reputation

While Åsa-Nisse was always popular among movie-goers (Spawning 19 sequels is no small feat), the movies have always been panned by critics both then and now. Some even see it as a low point in Swedish cinema that works as a stark contrast to Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...

's work of the same period. Their style of humour is now out of fashion but re-runs are still frequent on TV and they have been released on VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

 and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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