Tjuvholmen

Tjuvholmen is a waterfront district in Oslo, Norway, situated on the western side of Pipervika immediately south of Aker Brygge. Originally a small rocky headland of around five decares, the area has undergone several dramatic transformations. Its name is traditionally connected with its use as an execution site for thieves during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while later uses included a pottery, public baths and harbour facilities. Oslo’s harbour authority developed Tjuvholmen extensively between the 1920s and 1950s, after which the area was occupied by companies and institutions including Fred. Olsen & Co., Aker Engineering, the Norwegian National Academy of Ballet and the Norwegian National Academy of Opera. The former port was redeveloped from the mid-2000s according to a master plan by architect Niels Torp, with the first residents moving in during 2007. Completed in 2014, the modern district consists of several sections separated by canals and contains apartments, offices, restaurants, galleries and public waterfront spaces. Its best-known buildings include The Thief hotel and the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, designed by Renzo Piano and opened in 2012.

Tjuvholmen has appeared in Beforeigners (2019–2021), Exit (2019–2023) and Tenet (2020). The modern waterfront has been used very differently in each production: as the site of the murder that drives the first season of Beforeigners, as the wealthy financial environment surrounding the principal characters of Exit and as a recognisably real part of Oslo during preparations for the Freeport operation in Christopher Nolan’s Tenet.

In Beforeigners (2019–2021), Tjuvholmen becomes central to the murder investigation that drives the first season. In the opening episode, a dead woman who has recently arrived in the present from another historical period is found at the waterfront on Tjuvholmen. Detective Lars Haaland, played by Nicolai Cleve Broch, is assigned to the case together with Alfhildr Enginnsdottir, played by Krista Kosonen, Oslo police’s first officer from the Viking Age. What initially appears to be the death of another newly arrived “beforeigner” is determined to be murder, and the investigation gradually leads Lars and Alfhildr into the criminal world that has developed around people displaced from different periods of history. The victim is repeatedly referred to as the “Tjuvholmen woman”, and the investigation remains known as the Tjuvholmen case throughout the season, eventually connecting her death with the unexplained time phenomena occurring in the Oslofjord.

In Exit (2019–2023), Tjuvholmen forms an important part of the affluent Oslo environment surrounding the series’ wealthy financiers. One particularly clear use comes in the eighth episode of season 3, when Adam Veile, played by Swedish actor Simon J. Berger, argues with his wife Hermine, played by Agnes Kittelsen. After the confrontation, Adam goes outside and sits alone on the edge of the waterfront, drinking wine directly from the bottle. The scene can be located very precisely on Tjuvholmen: the restaurant Hanami is immediately beside him, while a change of camera angle to a closer view of Adam places the brightly coloured Skur 13 prominently across the water in the background. Rather than using Tjuvholmen simply as an anonymous luxury setting, the sequence makes the real waterfront geography particularly easy to recognise as Adam sits isolated beside the harbour following the argument.

In Tenet (2020), Olav Selvaags plass at Tjuvholmen appears as itself during preparations for the operation against the Oslo Freeport. Neil, played by Robert Pattinson, and the Protagonist, played by John David Washington, approach the square from the direction of The Thief hotel and meet Mahir, played by Himesh Patel, who will organise the aircraft needed for their plan. The entire Tjuvholmen sequence lasts approximately one minute and seven seconds and is presented as a continuous one-take shot. As the three men discuss crashing a transport aircraft into the Freeport, the camera continually circles around them in the middle of Olav Selvaags plass. This movement gives unusually clear views in several directions across the square and surrounding waterfront as the conversation continues, making Tjuvholmen itself a conspicuous part of the scene rather than merely a background location. Mahir explains how his team can take control of a Norskfreight aircraft and scatter its cargo of gold across the runway to distract attention from the break-in. The actual aircraft crash and exterior of the fictional Oslo Freeport were filmed separately at Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, California.

Tenet (2020)

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