Kallocain
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Kallocain
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| Episodes: | 2 |
| Year: | 1981 |
| Country: | Sweden, United Kingdom, Canada |
| Seasons: | 1 |
| Seasons Breakdown: | (1) 2 |
| Category: | Earth Future |
| Colour: | No |
| Format: | Mini-Series |
| Company: | |
| Creator: | Karin Boye (Original Novel), Hans Abramson (screenplay) |
| Run Time (mins): | 183 (all episodes) |
| Language: | Swedish, English |
| Type of Show: | Live Action |
| Status: | Ended |
| Broadcaster: | |
Summary
The narrative depicts a rigidly controlled, male‑dominated totalitarian society set in the early twentieth century. Boye situates the story within a state apparatus that has eradicated individualism and subordinated all personal identity to collective authority. Central to the plot is Leo Kall, a government chemist who develops the eponymous truth serum kallocain, a drug capable of compelling subjects to disclose their most private thoughts.
Although its primary application serves the regime’s surveillance and coercive aims, Kall gradually recognizes that the drug possesses constructive potential: by dissolving psychological barriers, it enables forms of human connection otherwise suppressed by the state. This possibility becomes evident when Linda, Kall’s wife, confides her dissent from official doctrine under the drug’s influence. Kall’s subsequent personal crisis reflects both the destructive consequences of totalitarian control and the emergence of a faint but significant hope for moral renewal.
Kallocain articulates Boye’s profound revulsion toward totalitarian ideologies, which were gaining ascendancy in parts of central Europe at the time of the novel’s composition. Although Sweden maintained neutrality during the Second World War and avoided direct devastation, the political climate and the outbreak of hostilities exerted a marked influence on Boye’s psychological state and informed the novel’s bleak yet introspective tone.
Cast
Judge BERTIL ANDERBERG, Linda HELENA BRODIN, Kadidja Kappori LENA BROGEN, Lavris, head of the 7th division GUNNEL BROSTROM, Member 3 LENA BRUNDIN, Tuareg, minister of police ERNST GUNTHER, Mother GERD HEGNELL, Member 2 SVEN-OLOF JANSSON, Karek, policecommissioner AKE LAGERGREN, Member 1 EVERT LINDKVIST, Witness ALF NILSSON, Member 4 GUNILLA NYROOS, Domestic servant BARBRO OBORG, Nr. 135 to experiment on PER OSCARSSON, Edo Rissen ULF QVARSEBO, Blind follower WIVEKA WARENFALK, Doctor MANS WESTFELT, Leo Kall SVEN WOLLTER.
Tags: Earth Future, Sweden, United Kingdom, Canada, 1981, Swedish, English
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