"Quicksand" on Netflix

"Why don't you ever ask anything important?"

On the surface of things, "Quicksand" is a sad procedural about a school shooting in a Stockhom suburb.  As such, it follows the lives of those involved: teachers and students, families and parents.  But deeper, beneath the surface, the six-part series explores the complex relationships between fathers and sons, parenting and violence, wealth and despair.

And it's the parenting piece that I found particularly gripping.  As seventeen-year-old Maja is drawn by degrees into the desperate orbit of the larger-than-life Sebastian, her bewildered mother misses every opportunity to engage.  She releases her daughter, a little too quickly, into the fast, abusive world of very wealthy friends.  And at one point, almost in passing, she tries to check in, but fails.  And Maja--disoriented by Sebastian and dissatisfied with her choices--says to her mother: "Why don't you ever ask anything important?"

On the other hand, Sebastian's father is grim, disinterested, even contemptuous: He's not even trying.  Sebastian is the son he never wanted, and he communicates disgust at every turn.

The film explores the matrix of wealth, superficiality and despair--out of which another horrific shooting occurs.  How does a child's powerlessness--in the face of parental contempt--turn him toward brutality, gunpower and violence?  Why do kids like Sebastian have access to guns in the first place?  What kind of family life is needed in these young lives, where meaning and connection and accountability are so easily betrayed?  All this: and the suggestion that powerlessness and parental malpractice till the ground for white nationalism, xenophobia and hate-inspired violence.

I don't recommend a lot of TV.  And "Quicksand" is painful, violent and hard.  There's the shooting, and there's rape, and there's brutal parenting at its core.  To be really honest, this Swedish series isn't for everyone; and I wouldn't want my daughters watching it.

But it asks key questions, crucial ones, about the culture in which rape becomes the way young men deal with vulnerability, sadness and despair.  And it explores the urgent need for courage in addressing the crisis of masculinity at the heart of 21st century catastrophes of so many varieties.  Trump.  Newtown.  Charlottesville.

Most of all, "Quicksand" seems to beg the issue that bites back with each mass shooting: What are we doing to our kids?  Why can't we ask anything important?