Cinema Scandinavia Issue 7 Preview by Emma Vestrheim

CINEMA SCANDINAVIA A quarterly publication for the films of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden

Force Majeure and the Bystander Cinema of Ruben รถstlund

Issue Seven | Winter 2014

The popularity of Danish Drama The provocative cinema of lars von trier Real humans: Swedish sci-fi

Rare exports

The nordic council film prize

CPH:DOX

reviews of the absent one, concrete night, copenhagen, how to stop a wedding, the keeper of lost causes, paris of the north, the 1 salvation, something must break, speed walking, the 100 year old man, and we are the best

welcome to issue seven

Of Horses and Men | Winner of the 2014 Nordic Council Film Prize

In this issue of Cinema Scandinavia, we look back at the top Scandinavian films from 2014, as well as Christmas and youth dramas. This year was a major year for Scandinavian film and television, with Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure winning the Jury Prize at Cannes, Denmark’s most expensive television drama ever, 1864, airing on DR, and a large number of festivals with Nordic programs. As it is the festive season, it feels necessary to look at the Finnish depiction of Santa Claus in Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, as well as current popular youth dramas like Misantropolis. Overall, 2014 has produced some of the highest quality content yet, and there is no doubt 2015 will be just as good, if not better.

Feature Articles 10

The Nordic Council Film Prize

In case of no emergency: the bystander cinema of ruben Ă&#x2013;stlund

Aerobics: Presenting mental illness in cinema 72

Read about the top five Nordic films of the year, and find out the winner of the prize.

As one of the top films of the year, how does Force Majeure relate to Ă&#x2013;stlundâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s other work?

The infernal santa claus in rare exports: a christmas tale

One of the top Swedish indie films of the year, this film tackles important societal questions.

misantropolis: a new hope for scandinavian youth drama

A recently debuted web series, Misantropolis is creating a new wave of youth drama

Lukas holgersson

the secret of the danes

1864: denmarks largest national trauma is more traumatising on film than in real life

Adam price: not just for the danes

mads mikkelsen

An interview with the einstein couple

The legacy of matador

Explore the dimensions of the demonic Santa Claus in this Finnish Christmas film.

The biggest Swedish child actor, explore the works of the young Lukas Holgersson.

the popularity of Danish drama 26

50-59 real humans: swedish sci fi television

60-67 t he provocative cinema of lars von trier

note: all references mentioned can be found on the back page of this issue, or on the cinema scandinavia website 4

reviews

cph:dox

The Keeper of Lost Causes / kvinden i buret

The Absent One / Fasandræberne

82 1989

Speed Walking / Kapgang

Concerning Violence

Of Horses and Men / Hross í oss

Nitrate Flames

92 How to Stop a Wedding / hur man stoppar ett 84 brÖllop 85 93 We are the Best! Vi är bäst! 85 94 Concrete Night / Betoniyö 86 96 Copenhagen 87 96 The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared / Hundraåringen som klev ut genom fönstret och försvann 97

Paris of the North / París Norðursins

The Salvation

The Look of Silence

Olmo and the Seagull Songs for Alexis The Gold Bug The Newsroom: Off the Record The Reunion

99 Something Must Break / Nånting måste gå sönder 99

Force Majeure / Turist

100

Aerobics: A Love Story

101

Dawn / Morgenrøde

facebook.com/cinemascandinavia @CineScandinavia www.cinemascandinavia.com

a lot of the reviews this issue were provided by Taylor sinople from the focus pull. visit www.thefocuspull.com for more film reviews 5

news september-december The Absent One Breaks Box Office Records

Peter von Bagh was also one of the founders of the legendary Midnight Sun Film Festival in Sodankylä, The sequel to The Keeper of Lost where he acted as festival director for Causes, The Absent One, has been 29 years and illuminated each edition breaking records at the Danish box with his personality. office. Released on the 2nd of October, the movie sold over 131,000 admissions during its first weekend. Audience Crisis for Danish Films Since then it has sold many more in Denmark tickets, becoming Denmark’s highest grossing film ever. In 2013, Danish films sold 4.1 million tickets, securing a Danish marRecord Visitors at Helsinki’s ‘Love ket share of 29.6%. During the first and Anarchy’ seven months of 2014, however, they accounted for only 21.1% of admisThe 27th Helsinki International Film sions. In July they reached an allFestival Love and Anarchy celebrat- time low of 5%. ed its highest ever crowd, with over “We can no longer hide the fact that 61,500 visitors and over 100 interna- Danish cinema domestically has entional film professionals. The festi- tered a trough the size of the Grand vals audience award went to the Pol- Canyon,” said the head of trade asish Oscar candidate IDA, and among sociation Danish Cinemas, Kim Pedthe festivals most popular titles were ersen. “The situation has been diOf Horses and Men and The Look sastrous during the last five months; of Silence. historically, this is an audience crisis we have never seen before.” Nordic Focus at ‘Power to the Pixel’ Mayor Angry at Lilyhammer The world leading event in cross-me- Lilyhammer started on TV in Nordia ran from the 7th-10th of October, way recently, and the major of Vågan parallel to the London Film Festival, in Lofoten claims he has been cheatand this year it hsoted a special Nor- ed of publicity. The new season of dic focus. Around 40 Nordic creators, the show features footage shot in Loproducers, private and public funders foten, but the finished show tells peoattended. ple that they are seeing Vesterålen, a rival region which competes with Lofoten over tourism. The mayor, EiPeter von Bagh Passes Away vind Holst of the Conservative Party, called the mix-up “totally sick.” Peter von Bagh was a celebrated Finnish film critic and film historian, Chicago Film Festival Spotlight on as well as a documentary filmmaker. Scandinavia He wrote over 40 books on film history and film directors, such as Aki The festival opened with Liv UllKaurismäki and Alfred Hitchcock. mann’s Miss Julie, and went on to 6

focus on 20 Scandinavian features and 8 shorts. “Since 1967, we have had a tradition presenting and awarding films from Scandinavian masters, from Aki Kaurismäki and Fridrik Thor Fridriksson to Bille August and Tomas Alfredson,” said the festival’s founder and artistic director, Michael Kutza, adding that Miss Julie is a suitable way to get things started, as Chicago has screened Ullmann’s three previous films as a director.

Lars von Trier Lars von Trier is afraid he has run dry “I don’t know if I can make more films, and that worries me,” said Danish director Lars von Trier in his first interview since his self-imposed silence, after he was accused of violating French legislation against glorifying war crimes at the press conference following the screening of his film Melancholia at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2011. In Copenhagen, he told Danish journalist Nils Thorsen, of the Politiken daily, that almost all of his films had been written while he was under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Now he had been sober for three months, not missing his daily Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

awa r d s a n d p r i z e s top prizes, the Silver Shell for Best Actress, awarded to Paprika Steen for her role as a daughter struggling with her mother’s painful decision. The last time a Danish film won a main award at San Sebastian was in 2004 with Connie Nielsen and Ulrich Thomsen both receiving a Silver Shell for their roles in Susanne Bier’s Brothers.

by € 2.500, was awarded to the Finnish documentary film Once I Dreamt of Life by Jukka Kärkkäinen and Sini Liimatainen. The Nordic Film Days Lübeck is the largest festival outside Scandinavia devoted to the films from the Nordic and Baltic regions. This year 172 films were screened in various sections.

The Legacy is the Best Danish Television Drama

short news

a pigeon sat...

DR Fiktion’s hit series The Legacy (Arvingerne) was handed out the Roy Andersson Wins Golden Lion ‘Best TV Drama Award’ as well as the ‘Viewers Award’ at the annual The Golden Lion for Best Film went TV Prisen or Danish TV Awards certo Swedish director Roy Andersson emony held at Copenhagen’s Tivoli for A Pigeon Sat on A Branch Re- Congress Centre. flecting on Existence, the film with the longest title and the most poetic, offbeat and striking story at the 71st The winners of the Amanda Awards Venice Festival. Andersson, who is 71 years old and has only made five Aksel Hennie won Best Actor for films, thanked “Italian cinema, par- his role in Pioneer, his fourth win ticularly Bicycle Thieves. Cinema in this category. The big winners should be full of empathy, just like were Blind and A Thousand Times De Sica’s film!” Good Night, which won respectively four and three awards. Erik Poppe’s Concrete Night Wins at Finnish A Thousand Times Good Night Film Week received Best Norwegian Film in Theatrical Release, Best Music and Finnish Oscar submission Concrete Best Cinematography. His directorial Night won Director of the Year for debut Blind won Eskil Vogt the Best Pirjo Honkasalo and Producers of the Directing Amanda, and it was also Year for Mark Lwoff-Misha Jaaari at awarded with Amandas for Best EdHelsinki’s Finnish Film Week. iting and Best Sound Design. Paprika Steen is Best Actress at Nordic Film Days Prize San Sebastian The 56th Nordic Film Days Lübeck Enjoying its world premiere at the awarded its main prizeto the IcelanSan Sebastian Film Festival, Bille dic film Life in a Fishbowl, directAugust’s drama Silent Heart was ed by Baldvin Z. The Documentary honoured with one of the festival’s Film Prize, which was accompanied

Sidse Babett Knudsen received a ‘Chevalier des Arts et Lettres’ at the French embassy in Copenhagen. A new film festival, led by Icelandic film director Friðrik Þór Friðriksson, will be launched in Reykjavík this winter. Film director Ruben Östlund has been appointed professor at Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg. Lars von Trier´s ‘Kingdom’ has finished second in the New York Magazine’s list of the ten scariest TV shows ever.

The Oscars Sorrow and Joy (DEN) Concrete Night (FIN) Life in a Fishbowl (ICE) 1001 Grams (NOR) Force Majeure (SWE)

NORDIC ADMISSIONS UPDATE At the moment it is The Absent One at the top spot in Denmark, confirming its title as the best selling film in 2014 with almost 800,000 admissions (as of mid-November). Bille August’s Silent Heart is also in the top ten list, with 112,000 admissions. In Finland, long runner The Grump by Dome Karukoski is still the top Finnish film in the country. The comedy drama has sold a staggering 414,740 tickets so far and dropped only by 4% week on week. In Iceland, the new instalment in the Sveppi comedy series The Biggest Rescue is scoring again with local crowds. The film kept its fourth place at the Top 10 and so far 30,386 people have seen the film written, directed, produced by Bragi Þór Hinriksson. In Norway the third instalment in the pre-school film franchise Casper and Emma’s Christmas is in its third weekend in second place, beating Interstellar and Dumb and Dumber 2. Lastly, in Sweden, just under at number five, Roy Andersson’s A Pigeon Sat on a Branch sold an extra 9.800 tickets in its third week, pushing total numbers to 41,715.

the legacy

things to look f o r wa r d t o i n

2015

The Legacy has been sold to to US production company Universal Cable Productions (UCP). UCP will now start on an American version of the series, and in the mean time NBC has one year to find a station willing to air the original series.

The top five Scandinavian films of the year (according to Taylor from www.thefocuspull.com)

1. Force Majeure 2. 1001 Grams 3. Speed Walking 4. Something Must Break 5. The 100 Year Old Man...

The Bridge season three has begun filming, and is due for release next year, despite not including lead actor Kim Bodnia. No subtitled release has been announced, but it will surely come soon.

Swedish star actor Mikael Persbrandt is set to play a charismatic TV anchor who falls for a femme fatale half his age (Malin Buska) in the Estonian/Swedish/Norwegian co-production Nordic Instinct directed by Kadri Kõusaar.

The Commune by Thomas Vinterberg

The commune

directors starting new films: • Thomas Vinterberg with his film The Commune • Nils Gaup with his Sami-themed The Last King • Lars von Trier with his television series The House That Jack Built • Joachim Trier with his film Louder Than Bombs • Ruben Ostlund with Way Out West men and chicken • Nicholas Winding Refn with The Men and Chicken will be released next year, and will feature pretty much Neon Demon

every Danish actor you are familiar with.The list includes: Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Nicolas Bro, Søren Molling, and David Dencik. The film has already been sold at the American Film Market, so an international release will be announced soon. The film is written and directed by Anders Thomas Jensen.

Rolf Lassgård will star in the adaptation of the novel A Man Called Ove rolf lassgård

c i n e m a s c a n d i n av i a w i n t e r 2 0 1 4

The 2014

Nordic Council Film Prize 10

blind

The Nordic Council Film Prize

words: Frederick BovÉ When, back in April, the Copenhagen PIX film festival gave its two awards to the Norwegian film Blind and the Icelandic film Of Horses and Men, there were slight murmurs at this apparent bit of Scandinavian favoritism. And it did perhaps seem a bit weird at the time. But at this point, at the end of year, after both those films got nominated for the Nordic Council Film Prize, after Scandinavian films like Force Majeure and Nymphomaniac had drawn so much attention abroad, and after the Venice film festival gave two of its biggest awards to Scandinavian films as well, we have to consider that 2014 might just have been a pretty incredible year for Scandinavian cinema. While the nominees for the Council prize might be the most acclaimed films of the year, there was also extremely well-made genre films like In Order of Disappearance and The Absent One, and another batch of great documentaries, and as the festival season began with The Hunt competing for the Foreign Language Oscar, it ended with Norwegian director Morten Tyldum eyeing several nominations for his English language biopic The Imitation Game. A full review of every noteworthy film this year would take many, many pages, but one can get a sense of the vitality and variety of Scandinavian cinema through looking at the five very different nominees for this years Nordic Council Film Prize. One problem with the Nordic Council Film Prize is that the five Scandinavian countries do not have the same filmmaking traditions. To illustrate that, let’s use Academy Award nominations: Both Iceland and Finland have been nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Film exactly once. At the other end, Ingmar Bergman alone has been nominated for that Oscar three times, and won every time, while Denmark has received four nominations in the last ten years. Not surprisingly, the prize hasn’t been given to each country equally, with five going to Denmark and four to Sweden, and only one, the first one in 2002 given to Aki Kaurismäki’s The Man Without a Past, going to a director from another country. At least until this year. But looking down over the list of nominations, they are filled with famous Danes and Swedes like Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg (the only one to have won the prize twice) Lukas Moodysson and Roy Andersson, while most of the Icelandic and Finnish directors are somewhat less known. Many years, it’s not too hard to guess which film will win, as one film will have gotten much more prestige than the others– for instance, my money is on Roy Andersson’s

Golden Lion winner A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence to grab the 2015 prize. Again this year, the Danish and Swedish nominees got more attention than the rest, both ending up being nominated for Best Film at European Film Awards. But all five nominees were very strong, with no film leaping ahead of the pack on quality alone. To start with the ‘worst’ of the five films, Pirjo Honkasalo’s Concrete Night is visually and aurally absolutely stunning, but fails to fully connect. Shot in stark black and white halfway between Eastern European art film and Sin City, with a multifaceted sound track of city-noises and classical music, the world of the film is a masterful creation. 14-year old Simo (Johannes Brotherus) dreams of train crashes and drowning, lives in a flat with his mother and elder brother, and looks out the window at feathers flying about and the ‘creepy’ homosexual living in the opposite building. His wanderings bring him to Orthodox churches, dingy bars and alleys, and fog-filled forests, all given a dreamlike quality by the way it’s filmed. The cinematography alone is very much worth the price of admission. The problem is, though, that the film is not about the amazing world that it creates, but specifically about how the 14 year old at the center is formed and sculpted by this weird world around him. This means that for every stunning shot of the Helsinki skyline seen from afar, or the lights of a carnival at night, there seems to be a shot of the face of young Simo, while he observes, considers, takes it all in. It becomes a bit boring, and Simo himself is hurt by this, as he is by design a blank slate waiting to be filled in by his surroundings, and therefore is not a very interesting character in himself. Also, this is way too much weight to be put on the shoulders of a young actor like Brotherus, and unfortunately he is not at all up to the task. He is not particularly bad, but the role calls for him to be a screen on which everything else in the film could play out, and, like most other actors his age I’d guess, he can’t do it. The other actors, like Jari Virman as the cool elder brother Ilkka, who is going to jail for a drug-related crime, or Juhan Ulfsak as the mysterious homosexual neighbour, merely need to be prototypes that Simo can contemplate and consider, and they are great at that, having the kind of faces that are immediately striking. They are one with the world, as striking as the sandboxes or the luminous jellyfish. But Simo is meant to stand apart, and as he fails to uphold interest, a hole develops at the center

c i n e m a s c a n d i n av i a w i n t e r 2 0 1 4

concrete night of the film, which unfortunately holds the film back from reaching its full potential. It is still a very beautiful and interesting film, though. Secondly, we have the Norwegian nominee, Eskil Vogt’s Blind. Norway has been nominated for the Foreign Language Academy Award five times, and has quite a thriving industry. However, it hasn’t really had those big-name directors, like a Roy Andersson or a Nicholas Winding Refn, to name two that weren’t nominated this year. This might be changing, though. Specifically, Joachim Trier has caused quite a stir internationally with his films Reprise and Oslo 31. August, both former nominees for this prize. Eskil Vogt was the scriptwriter on those two films, but Blind is his debut feature. A witty examination of a woman named Ingrid dealing with a sudden onset of blindness, the film definitely shares a lot with a film like Oslo 31 August. As with that film, this is a portrait of a person feeling apart from society, and also like the earlier film, this one includes a few essay-like portions, where Ingrid explains what is like being blind. She’s also writing a story of three lonely people, one of whom is her husband, which allows the film to touch on such subjects as porn addiction – in a segment which might be more explicit than any part of Nymphomaniac – and the increase in distrust towards lonely men after Utøya. It also allows the film to do an assortment of visual tricks, as Ingrid will change her mind about details of the story, mean-

ing a scene will change between being at a coffee place or on public transport at a moments notice, confusing the poor characters. I was probably rooting for this film, which has the typical flaws of being a debut feature, but feels incredibly fresh. It’s not really the best of the five nominees, but I also thought it had the best chance of breaking the Danish/ Swedish stranglehold on the prize. Well, shows what I know. Moving on to that stranglehold, Ruben Östlund received his third nomination for Nordic Council Prize this year, more than any of the other nominees. And yet, he somehow still feels like an up-and-coming filmmaker. Perhaps it’s because he is still establishing himself on the world stage. Play from 2012 got some attention, but not that much compared to Force Majeure, winner of the Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, and recipient of many glowing reviews in USA when it was released over there. Force Majeure feels like an arrival. Ruben Östlund is a master of using and exposing the geometry of modern life, something also seen in the shopping-malls and train carriages of Play, but the fancy hotel in Force Majeure is almost certainly the most surreal he’s ever gotten. The comparison between the endless snowy expanses and the welldressed Swedes on tiny lifts moving in straight lines says almost everything. The weirdness of the complex system creating controlled avalanches to clear the pistes. The family even has a drone for a toy. Like Play, the plot revolves

The Nordic Council Film Prize

“Force Majeure feels like an arrival, and Ruben Östlund is a master of using and exposing the geometry of modern life.”

force majeure around unfamiliar elements intruding on the lives of the Swedish middle class. In Play it was immigrant children, in Force Majeure it’s nature itself, in the form of a controlled avalanche, which causes the father Tomas to panic and flee, leaving his wife and family behind. Nature has revealed the unmanly nature of Tomas, and the rest of the film deals with the repercussions of this reveal. The film is milder than Play and much funnier. Tomas and his friend Mats, who left his wife behind and now goes on vacation with a much younger girlfriend, are somewhat pathetic, but mostly harmless. In some ways, it seems less brave than Play, more easily palatable. Perhaps that was why Östlund didn’t win his second Council Prize in three years. There can be no doubt, though, that Force Majeure cemented Östlund’s position as Sweden’s most interesting young(ish) director. He might be the best in Scandinavia at filming architecture. And then there is Lars von Trier and his Nymphomaniac. What more is needed to say at this point? This film might have been the international art-house sensation of the year, what with the genius marketing, and the endless supply of new versions constantly keeping it in the public eye. At this point Lars von Trier is firmly entrenched among the most well known non-English-speaking director in the world. It is insane how much attention has been given to what should by all means be the least commercial thing Trier has ever done. 5½ hours in the Director’s Cut – which was also the one I’ve watched – with so many callbacks to Triers own career that it could very

Previous Nordic Council Film Prize Winners 2013: The Hunt

Denmark | Director: Thomas Vinterberg

2012: Play

Sweden | Director: Ruben Östlund

2011: Beyond

Sweden | Director: Pernilla August

2010: Submarino

Denmark | Director: Thomas Vinterberg

2009: Antichrist

Denmark | Director: Lars von Trier

2008: You, The Living

Sweden | Director: Roy Andersson

2007: The Art of Crying

Denmark | Director: Peter Schønau Fog

2006: Zozo

Sweden | Director: Josef Fares

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“Those Icelandic horses are famously diminutive in stature. And the sight of a proud middle-aged Icelandic man on a small Icelandic horse never ever stops being funny throughout the films run-time.”

will be seen as a meta-movie about himself, and, of course, filled with more explicit sex than most porn-films. And an argument could be made that it’s the best thing Trier has done since The Kingdom back in the mid-nineties. The long version of this film is unlike almost any film ever made. Basically the story of a single long conversation between a nymphomaniac named Joe and an old virgin named Seligman, the film is paced so uniquely, with digressions upon digressions ever shoving aside what little narrative momentum the film ever builds up, creating a feeling more like reading an old novel than watching a normal 2-hour movie. Fly-fishing, the differences between Catholicism and Orthodoxism, what kind of knot to make to hang somebody, the glory of Bach’s use of counterpoint. That last one is crucial. The whole film is woven like a fugue, with themes, motives, genres and characters travelling in and out of the story seemingly at will. Whatever the many quite logical misgivings one

can have about Lars von Trier, it’s hard to deny this wasn’t the magnum opus of Scandinavian cinema in 2014, just in grandiosity alone. However, the prize jury only considered the four-hour version, which I’m told didn’t include some essential scenes, and had a much more conventional pace. And anyway, a film so flawed and divisive was never a surething winner anyway. And so, the prize went to a very surprising winner: Benedikt Erlingsson’s Of Horses and Men. The slimmest and slightest of the films in the competition, it is basically a rumination on the relationship between the stout Icelandic man and his horse. I’ll admit I didn’t expect much of the film, as I don’t care much about horse-riding, but I’d forgotten about a crucial detail. Those Icelandic horses are famously diminutive in stature. And the sight of a proud middle-aged Icelandic man on a small Icelandic horse never ever stops being funny throughout the films

The Nordic Council Film Prize

of horses and men

run-time. The opening scene is especially glorious, with a middle-aged man dressing up in his finest horse riding outfit to visit the woman he has a crush on. The shots of him on his trotting white horse with the mountains in the background is simply perfect cinema: Lines, movement, landscape and scale all adding up to a concise statement on Icelandic manliness. I won’t spoil the punch-line to that scene, though since it’s on the poster, it should not be hard to figure out. The film never tops this glorious scene, but it contains enough variations on the theme – horse in water, horse in snow, several horses in a row – to hold interest throughout the film. It’s quite morbid, probably even a bit feminist. And whenever a film can say this much, be so funny, with so little dialogue, it’s always worth sitting up and taking notice.

I would never have guessed Of Horses and Men would win the prize, and honestly, it was probably only my fourth favorite of the five films. But in some ways that makes its win even more fitting for this great year of Scandinavian Cinema: Only the fourth best of the nominees, but still a completely deserving winner. And a debut feature, even, pointing perhaps to an even better future. All in all, this year the Nordic Council Film Prize did exactly what it should: Showcased the diversity, energy and stunningly high quality of the best of Scandinavian filmmaking in the past year.

Of Horses and Men is available on DVD on Amazon.co.uk and shopicelandic.com

1864:

Denmarkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Largest National Trauma is more Traumatising on film than in real life

1864 26

The popularity of Danish Drama words: sandra fijn van draat

1864

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS “I have had a free hand on this project. In one way, I am a bit like Stanley Kubrick. He is also one of the few directors who have had a free hand. And such is a rarity in 2014, where the money for films and series do not grow on trees.” - Ole Bornedal

In 2010 while Ole Bornedal was working in Paris, he was contacted by DR’s head of Drama Ingolf Gabold about making a film about 1864. A film with inspiration from the two books by Tom Buk-Swienty “Slagtebænk Dybbøl”1 and “Dommedag Als”2. A fiction-drama that four years later would cause real-life drama in the Danish society, by being the most expensive and most maligned TV-series of all times. The TV-series premiered in Denmark the 12th October 2014, to mark the 150 years event of the biggest national trauma of Denmark – a trauma where the Danes lost their power and became the state we now today.

Which year are we in, Bornedal? The first three episodes were more in the Danish social-realistic style, taking the young confused teenager Claudia in consideration in the present time-line. Claudia has a hard time finding herself as a person, as well as having a true passion for something after her brother died in the war in Afghanistan. After dropping out of several schools and temporarily jobs, the municipality informs her that it’s time to stop helping her. But they give her a last job offer. A job as a house-help for the old landowner, Baron Severin. On his estate she finds Inges old diary, a diary that is the linking the present to the events of 1851 and ahead. The first episode is mostly dealing with the presentation of the different characters, and their internal relations. In the re-telling of the old events, the most important and normal characters are Inge, Laust and Peter. They also carry the most important non-war part in the story, namely the triangle drama about who will win Inges heart. Laust and Peters father were seriously injured after the successful three-year war. The father dies in the end of the first episode, and that is the starting point for them to voluntary join the army and eventually fight the big 1864 battle later on. In the first episode we are in the year 1851, 13 years before the war. Laust and Peter are growing up in a poor, but yet safe family, working on the local goods. In these years Denmark is still living high on the 3-year-war success and the Danish nationalism and faith are growing intensely. Both of the brothers are interested in the beautiful tomboy “Inge” , and a rare and beautiful friendship with her is established. In the mean-time, the political powers are discussing their future visions for the German part “Slesvig” - strictly against the peace-treaty.

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In the second episode we follow Laust, Peter and Inge growing up. They are being influenced by the traveling gypsies on life outside of Denmark, and they all feel a connection to this world outside. The strong persuasive, and genetical crazy politician Monrad is creating a national euphoria in the Danish parliament, when he is talking about the integration of Slesvig. Even though this will create a war. Both Laust and Peter are in love with Inge, but Inge is in love with them both. But they have to say goodbye, when they are joining the Danish army, in the honour of their father’s name. In the third episode “Monrad” is creating a new constitution which integrates Slesvig in the Danish kingdom. A constitution that creates drama and a war declaration from Preussen. In the army Laust and Peter meets their young soldier colleagues, and it finally occurs to them how consequential war can be. In the mean-time a special bond between Inge and Laust is happening, and they are sending letters to each other secretly. In the fourth episode Peter and Laust are reaching Dannevirke, where they meet the new captain – a familiar face from the domestic goods, but not exactly a happy reunion. Laust and Inge continue their secret exchange of letters but a wrongly delivered mail creates serious breach in the relationship of the inseparable brothers. Dannevirke proves nearly as impregnable as it has prided itself on, and General De Meza decides against Copenhagen’s willingness to make a withdrawal from Dannevirke to Dybbol.

“You are a Dead man walking Bornedal” till “The Danes are blushing” When you are creating the most expensive TV series in Denmark of all time, it is not only up to the most pretentious film-critics to review it, but also to the whole population as well. Especially when you are taking national-trauma and historical events into consideration. If it were only about the historical credibility and the quality of the drama, but apparently 1864 created much more debate, apart from the TVshow, than any other show has ever done before. And why? Because of the media license fee3. A fee all Danes regardless of having a television or not, have been forced to pay since public television was born. And the Danes do not like to pay their license fee. The discussion has not only been about the plot of the series, but 1864 has also been a sym-

bol for something evil – an evil thing as the license fee. In Denmark we don’t joke about the license fee, we put it of for a debate whenever we get the chance. Is there a better chance when we are watching a television drama, that has been the most expensive of all times? I already feel pity for Bornedal. The Danish movie-magazine “Ekko” officially announced Bornedal with the title “Dead man walking”, even though they gave him 5 out of 6 stars. This, was the best review among all newspapers for the first episode. They are comparing the historical events in 1864 with rape. A rape of the Danish greatness and glory, and the psychological rape of the soldiers’ and the inhabitants’ mind-set - about being an undefeated state. I feel the review is a rape of my mind. The overall review seems a bit mixed in its tone, and it’s hard to figure out whether they actually do like the series, or they only can see a future potential in it. Especially, when they take the political and historical events credibility, much more into consideration than the actual drama. The Danish newspaper “Ekstra bladet” gave the second episode two stars. They proclaimed that the Danes and the critics are too much focused on the credibility of the historical and political events – and that they stopped thinking about the story-line and plot. A plot they think that disappoints and a plot they say that the Danes are not worth of. Because the Danish people are not stupid – and we don’t need to get the same point twice right after each other. For the 3rd episode “Berlingske tidende” compared Bornedal with a balloon artist. A balloon artist that is only blowing up balloons for himself, so he can destroy them again afterwards. They are proclaiming like “Ekstra bladet” that he is repeating himself too much, and the series occurs like a silent film. They say that you can easily take the volume off, so easy is the plot. But the most important point that all of the critics came with for the 3rd episode was – where hell is the war? It’s a general opinion for the 3rd episode, that everybody is bored – and that we need to stop the melodrama and start the war. In the 4th episode the slow melodrama stopped, and the cold and harsh war began. This episode got mixed reviews as well, but an interesting review about his episode is from the newspaper “BT”. They say that Denmark is blushing, and Bornedal is moving. They gave him five stars in their review, and announce that the wars seriousness and depth that have been missing so far, is not only being completed in the 4th episode, but is a beautiful extension of the drama so far.

The popularity of Danish Drama 1864

1864

Visually ground-breaking Taking the visual expression into consideration - there is only one word, that can describe the overall style in the series and that is “Ground-breaking”. It’s not only ground-breaking because of the style itself - because we’ve been watching it from America for decades. It’s ground-breaking because we finally dare to do it in Denmark. As a person that has been watching a lot of Danish movies and series throughout the time, it’s a relief that somebody finally dares to break the social realistic style with too many close-ups and reaction shots. Innovative compositions, a general total-frame tendency and use of steady-cam -

it is a gift to the series overall look. The colour grading is wisely chosen for the series and the dark, cold and realistic colours for the events in the 1860’s are giving the series an older look, which is a big contrast to the 2010’s events where the visuals have much more light, colours and warmth within the picture. The visual impression is art in itself, so therefore it’s a shame that sometimes the visual beauty overshadows the storyline. But on the other hand it’s important that the visual aspect works, because then we can be tempted to ignore the missing dramaturgy.

No war without drama: Understand the history One thing I find shocking, is that nobody really understand the historical events 1864 are about. The series have been more discussed than any other thing the last couple of weeks. Everybody has his own opinion about the drama, acting, the director and of course the value of the series. But it seems to me, that nobody in my generation knows what this war is about. They know that it was the biggest national-trauma in the Danish history, they know that thousands of soldiers died and that the war meant that Denmark lost its greatness forever. But what they don’t know is which war we were fighting. Many people have said to me it is the 1864-war. Well that’s not a war, 1864 is the year where the war events were happening. The concrete war and battle that the series take in consideration is The Second Schleswig War. This particular war was the second military conflict, about SchleswigHolstein matter. The war was fought between Prussia and Austria, and then in Denmark from 1st of February 1864 till the 20th July 1864. The key battle of the Second Schleswig War was The Battle of Dybbøl4. It occurred on the morning of the 18th April 1864 following a siegestarting on 7th April. Denmark suffered a severe defeat against Prussia which decided the outcome of the war. The Danish defeat of the war meant loosing several soldiers, loosing our patriotism and loosing Holstein, Lauenburg and Schleswig5 all the way up to the “Konge”creek. To get a full impression of the Second Schleswig war, you have to look into the history books and not focus exclusively on the series. It’s important to distinguish between facts and fiction, because the series is not a documentary but fiction. It is indeed inspired by true events, but spiced up with extra drama to fictionalise it and sell it.

a map of the war in 1864 30

The popularity of Danish Drama 1864

not promising Bornedal a happily ever after, I’m just saying that on the other side of the media-storm there CAN be gold.

No Kubrick nor Bergman Though you can be tempted to compare 1864 with the period drama Barry Lyndon – Ole Bornedal will still never be like Stanley Kubrick. He is known for his overuse of elaborating his themes and stories too much. As a script-writer he is not clear enough in his intentions, neither within the series nor with drama. We’ve come a long way since his epic horror-film Nightwatch but it’s not necessarily a good way. He thought himself that Nightwatch was a brilliant movie, but he never expected the success it would get, nor that it would represent the horror genre. I don’t know if he got megalomania after that success and thinks that he can still live on that success, but one thing is for sure; the script is not a masterpiece without effort. He had a rough childhood, where he fantasised about two new fathers to compensate his own fathers absence. His personal preferences were Sean Connery and Ingmar Bergman. They represent themes that he found existentially in films. Themes like brutality and kindness, muscle and brain, sex and charm and seduction. Though it’s an interesting passion for the different themes, Bornedal will never be as charming as Connery or as intelligent as Bergman. But he is indeed talented, intelligent and charming in his own way.

Still hope for the future Taking the audience-shares in consideration, there has been a clear decreasing tendency. In the beginning 1.7 million viewers were watching, but already for the fourth episode 600.000 were lost. It has probably something to do with the slow-melodrama beginning. The people want to see war, intense fights and big beautiful battles. Therefore it is a lot to expect from the viewers, that they should keep watching after the first 3 episodes - and still no war. But what I think can happen in the future is, that when the whole media-storm settles and we have had some time to reflect about the series – it could become a heritage success. Like the epic drama Matador. In the beginning it received horrible reviews, and now the drama has been rebroadcasted several times with a huge audience-shares every time. Furthermore, this series is considered as being masterpiece within Danish heritage. So I’m

Bravest man walking? Ole Bornedal is literally dead man walking. Not only because he’s been having the film-critics, historians and politicians eyes on him since the premiere – but also because he’s got the whole Danish population against him. But after that conclusion, he is also one of the bravest filmmakers and writers of our time. He dared to take the challenge up, a challenge about a historical event that we’re still dealing with today . So I would like to go against the storm, and announce that even though I don’t support his plot entirely – I would still dare to call him “The bravest man walking”. Because when you look at Bornedal, you look at an artist, not a historian. An artist who got the job and a free hand to interpret true historical events. An artist who saw the historians as guides, but not as a complete result. So, if you want to learn people about the real facts around The Second Schleswig: borrow a book on the library! If you want to watch visual groundbreaking art while getting an idea of the events: watch 1864. At the moment it feels like the series is more traumatising on television, than it actually was in real life. Not because of the historical events that I know will happen, but because of the fictionalised events I didn’t expect. Like the rape of both a cow, a gypsy and later on my psyché. I still have a hope for the series, and I see potential in it. I have only been taking four episodes into consideration. Four beautiful episodes, but all episodes without a clear tone about what we should focus on. I think that the visual aspects are stunning and some acting convincing. But the plot in itself is too overambitious, therefore I’m getting confused too often and find it hard to figure out what to focus on. I’m looking forward to watch the last four episodes. Hopefully it will give a more nuanced view on the series by taking all of the episodes and the overall experience in consideration.

1864 will be having its UK premiere in December 2014 on BBC4. You can find 1864 on www.dr.dk in Danish without subtitles. It is also available online for purchase, but no English-subtitled DVD release has been mentioned.

1864: what’s with all the characters? From the beginning 1864 has been ambitious. Not only because of the budget, the director, the historical events but also by choosing a huge cast of characters. It is intensely enough to understand the drama between Inge, Laust and Peter but it’s even harder to understand so many different characters and their want’s and needs, when you have so many different plots to follow. This reminds me of the epic series The Wire not because of its beautiful drama, but because it is a series that demands something from their audience. It challenges them to remember, do their homework and to give their own effort – in order to understand the story-line and the characters. And were it works for The Wire, because it’s aiming for a special, diverse and passionate audience it doesn’t work for Mr and Mrs Denmark because it’s hard to follow. There are too many plots going on at one time, which makes it’s hard for the audience to create a bond and follow the characters. They thought they were going to watch a series about war, not a huge character cast. It is important to distinguish between the characters from the present timeline, and the past time-line. I will take the most important characters in consideration for the first 4 episodes.

sofie boussnina

bent mejding

Claudia, present time-line 2014 (Sarah Sofie Boussnina)

Baron Severin, present time-line 2014 (Bent Mejding)

As a character she reminds me of a constantly-ticking time bomb. She occurs extremely provocative and in general annoying - with her passion for joints, social support benefits and heavy eye-makeup. You might say she is a typical example of a young Danish cash benefit recipient, whose primary purpose is to take as much from the state as possible. I feel quite embarrassed about this stereotype, and I think it’s too easy and a vague move from Bornedal to boost such a weak stereotype. But well, when that is said – I see a strong possibility for her to grow as a character throughout the series and by removing her eye make-up, piercing’s and her bad attitude in general you can regain a nice person. Though I see potential in her as an actor in general, she annoys me and in someway I do not feel convinced with her acting. Maybe it’s because I don’t believe in the character, that I feel the way I do. But I think it’s a shame that she got this stereotyped role, because she was growing as an actor outside the series.

He is almost 100 years old, about to die and all by himself on a major goods. He is too strong-armed to leave his mansion but to weak to take care of himself. He get’s help from Claudia, and together they reconstruct the events of 1864 through Inge’s diary. I get goose-bumps from his acting. He is amazingly cast and a gift to the series. Despite he is 77 years old in real life, he is playing the old man confident and with authenticity. He has come far since the womaniser-character in the heritage series Matador. From the mayor-role in The Killing till a blind cripple, that shits his own pants suddenly is acting at its best.

jens lassen and jakob oftebro Brothers, Peter and Laust past timeline 1850’s till 1860’s (Jens SætterLassen and Jakob Oftebro) Giving Peter (Sætter-Lassen) the opportunity for his biggest role so far, was a wise move from Bornedal. His sensitivity, intelligence and personality are his strongest features and makes his inner character richer than his outer. Obviously in contrast to his older brother Laust (Oftebro) who is the toughest and the most masculine of those two, both on the inside and the outside. Both actors are playing truthful to their character’s personalties.

pilou asbaek

nicolas bro

Didrich, past time-line 1850’s till 1860’s (Pilou Asbæk)

Bishop Monrad, past time-line 1850’s till 1860’s (Nicholas Bro)

Pilou Asbæk is playing the Antihero Didrich who is raping gypsies, cows and his own mind in order to survive. Though Asbæk has crazy eyes that matches a crazy person – I don’t like him in the series. He has been used too much in television lately in such small amount of time, which makes his character unreliable.

The bishop is portrayed as a character with lunatic genes. He is the key-person that brings Denmark into war, by being a strong proponent for the Danish nationalism and by being a rhetorical and political genius. His worst enemies are not the Germans but his own crazy self, that can bring him into the crazy house where almost everybody from his family has been. Nicholas Bro is a safe choice, and my favourite actor He plays convincingly with his theatrical competencies, despite “Bishop Monrad’s” character as interpreted by Bornedal might appear as fake.

If you would like to learn more about the Second Schleswig War, you can find these books online: - Jesse Russell Ronald Cohn, Second Schleswig War, Published by Books on Demand in 2012 - Michael Embree, Bismarck’s First War: The Campaign of Schleswig and Jutland 1864, Published by Helion and Company in 2006

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matador

the legacy of matador words: piers ford Given the succession of iconic series that have swept across the international broadcast landscape in the last three years, an innocent bystander could be forgiven for assuming that Danish television drama sprang into the world, fully fledged, in January 2011. That’s when a BBC executive took a punt on a dark murder story with a complex female lead character, slipped it into BBC4’s Saturday night schedule. And the rest is history. The Killing had actually aired in its home country four years earlier. But suddenly, it was launched on a global trajectory: Nordic Noir went mainstream as a genre, Sarah Lund’s jumper went viral and the way was paved for Borgen, The Bridge, along with Sweden’s Wallander and Arne Dahl, to enjoy all-conquering success as wider audiences woke up to the creative depth of Scandinavia’s TV talent. The tide now seems unstoppable as The Legacy and 1864 take their place in the winter schedules, promising new, Danish twists on psychological and historical drama, respectively.

The sense that it all began with The Killing has been reinforced by the occasionally self-congratulatory delight of foreign programme buyers at ‘discovering’ this rich cultural seam and bringing it to our attention. In fact, as studies such as Patrick Kingsley’s entertaining How to be Danish make clear, The Killing was in many ways just another staging post in a revolution in Danish television drama production which had long been underway – a revolution inspired to a great extent by the success of the Dogme cinema movement during the mid-1990s, which gave more clout to directors and screenwriters. Programme makers had also started looking for ways to exploit the multi-layered narrative techniques and psychological complexities of successful long-running US drama series in their own ideas and concepts. This might sound like a reaction to the conventions and parochialism of more traditional Danish television drama which had gone before. But ask a Dane to name the programme which nails the national character most accurately, and it is quite likely that they will bypass the modernism of cult 1864 (2014-)

The popularity of Danish Drama the legacy of matador

crime drama and the stylish economy of 21st-century family sagas, and wax lyrical about a series that dominated television viewing between 1978 and 1981: Matador. At first glance, the psychological depth and realism of the inter-generational relationships which unravel in The Legacy – or indeed the sense of profound emotional damage that defines Sarah Lund’s character – might seem light years away from the more generic tropes explored in Matador, the story of a provincial town between the Depression and the slow post-war years of recovery. But the fact that the nation still heaves a huge, nostalgic sigh whenever it is reshown suggests that its own legacy is still too potent to be disregarded. Matador, too, was revolutionary in its time. Translated as ‘Monopoly’, it tells the story of Mads Andersen Skjern, a puritanical entrepreneur, who arrives in the fictional regional town of Korsbæk, upsetting a host of apple carts and undermining the town’s clearly defined social, commercial and financial order. This one-man capitalist invasion is overtaken by the German occupation as the Second World War advances, heralding a period of rapid change and mixed fortunes for a rich cast of characters. Created by the distinguished journalist Lise Nørgaard, who also wrote many of the 24 episodes, and directed by filmmaker Erik Balling, Matador was a ground-breaking co-production between national broadcaster DR’s entertainment department and Nordisk Film. DR’s drama department took a superior view of serial drama at the time, considering single plays to be a more legitimate creative focus. But while some of the nation’s broadsheet critics shared that disdain, Matador was an instant popular hit. “It was the first real thing that brought Danes together in front of a television screen,” says Professor Ib Bondebjerg, from the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Media, Cognition and Communication. “It has been broadcast seven times and each time has been almost as popular as the first time round. It seems that Matador resonates with an older audience but it also picks up a new audience whenever it is shown again. People know the scenes and characters so well, and some of the most famous lines have passed into the language. Today, it’s a monument. You can’t touch it and everybody agrees that it has a unique place in Danish culture.”

If the producers of 1864 were hoping that a historical drama focusing on an equally important period in Danish history, when the modern nation began to emerge from the wreckage of the Second Schleswig War, would enjoy a similarly affectionate reception, they must be disappointed by the heated debate that has greeted the series. The jury is still firmly out on its status as a landmark production. As Bondebjerg says, 1864 treats its subject with seriousness – some have suggested earnestness – which lacks Matador’s lightness of touch. Matador’s use of gently comic moments to leaven individual social and financial conflicts, themselves often metaphors for more universal threats to traditional Danish ways of life – the quintessential clash between old-fashioned attitudes and modern ideas - is one of the keys to its longevity; it was made at a time when many people still remembered the age in which it was set. And Nørgaard’s Korsbæk, a thinly disguised version of Roskilde, her childhood home, was the perfect setting for essentially domestic events to reflect the national tensions caused by the German occupation and the ongoing modernisation of society. Film historian Peter Schepelern, who is also an Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen, says it was clearly inspired by the popularity of British serial dramas Upstairs Downstairs and A Family at War when they were first shown on Danish television. “I’m sure these were also in the perspective of Lise Nørgaard and Erik Baller, just as Lars Trier was later influenced by Twin Peaks when he made The Kingdom,” says Scheperlern. “In the 1970s and 1980s, we didn’t see very much US television in Denmark because the programme buyers thought it was vulgar. So Matador was certainly a result of the idea of trying to do with our history what the British had done with theirs, in terms of television drama.” If that is the case, the parallel between Matador’s role as a prism for new dramatic influences, and the way current successes such as The Killing and The Legacy reflect the influence of cutting edge US television drama, is easy to see. In some respects, Matador is a time capsule which keeps on giving up its treasure even when, as Schepelern says, the nation has been filled to the neck with it.

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It has been released in every format, even given away with magazines, but a million people will still sit down and watch the reruns in their living rooms. “Matador was the last really successful piece of national identity fiction,” he says. “When it was first shown, some people criticised the way new ideas were depicted. But today, it seems somehow to trigger a simple picture of the past that arises in our minds. The same is true of Krøniken [Better Times], which Stig Thorsbøe created ten years ago and picks up the story of how modern Denmark evolved. As Schepelern explains, the idea was not to make a continuation of Matador, but to connect a fictional family saga with the bigger picture of Danish society, using the early days of the DR television network as a narrative vehicle. “It was a brilliant concept which worked very well, revealing how the country developed in the post-war years up to the time it joined the Common Market,” he says. Matador had strong elements of folk comedy, and a simplicity that contrasts strongly with contemporary Danish dramas. “The most obvious difference is that we now have much more complexity in the psychology of the characters,” says Schepelern. “In The Legacy, you have a kind person who does wrong things – in line with the American style typified by Breaking Bad, The Wire and The Sopranos. This allows the writers to be more sophisticated and there is no need to have simplified stories any more. But the danger is that you end up with a menu of clichés that are used over and over again. Every series has a defective character, and sometimes you do feel that there is an overwhelming range of problems! What else can we do, once we’ve run out of affairs, potential suicides and so on?” If audiences do eventually tire of these complicated pileups, the next revolution will surely deliver yet another twist in the development of Danish television drama, in which simplicity could be a keyword. For the time being, however, it is thriving on its status as a fashionable and important commodity on the world stage, and its expertise in delivering what Ib Bondebjerg calls the “double story”.

“You can’t make a shallow product anymore,” he says “There has to be an underlying ethical or political dimension, so personal stories are always connected in some way with big social institutions and enterprises – as in Borgen and The Legacy.” Those connections were also there in Matador, albeit on an embryonic scale represented by the town’s increasingly troubled private bank and department store. Despite the gulf between production styles and techniques then and now, perhaps Danish programme makers have always had an instinctive understanding of how to use the personal/social/national dynamic to make compelling drama. The fact that their approach is currently chiming in tune with international tastes is simply a bonus. “Many of us travelling to international research conferences are very aware of this new interest in Danish drama and we have to acknowledge that something exciting – not rotten – is going on in the state of Denmark,” he says. For the rest of us caught in its spell, taking some time out for a nostalgic feast on a Matador box set might be the best way to understand that the success of modern Danish television drama is firmly rooted in a tradition of quality and attention to detail. Equally, today’s successes reflect an ability to absorb new ideas and influences, and exploit them in productions that define and present a thoroughly modern cultural identity for a global audience.

Matador is available in DVD boxset online with English subtitles (with a bit of searching) The Legacy is currently screening on British television, and DVD rights have been signed, meaning an announcement is due soon.

The popularity of Danish Drama the legacy of matador

the best in danish television The House in Christianshavn (1970-1977)

Matador

(1978-1982)

The Kingdom (1994)

Taxa

(1997-1999)

The Kingdom (1994)

This series was made by Lars von Trier, and has recently been voted one of the scariest television programs of all time. Lars von Trier stated on the DVD that it is intended to be an up-to-date version of Matador.

Unit 1

(2000-2004)

The Eagle: A Crime Odyssey (2004-2006)

Better Times (2004-2007)

The Killing (2007-2012)

the killing (2007-2012)

The Killing was possibly the first Danish television series to launch to large international success, becoming one of the biggest series in the UK and one of the major names behind the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Nordic Noirâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; genre.

Borgen (2010-)

The Bridge (2011-)

The Legacy (2014-)

1864

(2014-)

1864

(2014-) 1864 has been named the next big Danish television drama, also being the most expensive Danish series ever, costing an estimated DKK 173,000,000. The series premiered to mix reviews.

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real humans

Real humans: Swedish sci-fi television 50

what actually is a real human? Real Humans (original title: Äkta människor) created by Lars Lundström is a Swedish mixed-genre TV series that combines the elements of science fiction and drama, but a certain amount of crime also appears on the screen from time to time.

words: barbara majsa Before I start discussing the new Scandinavian hit, I would like to briefly elaborate on the Scandinavian/Nordic series in general. Nowadays Scandinavian TV shows are fairly prominent around the globe, which might be the result of their distinctive and easily recognisable style, but even the region itself is quite popular among both job seekers and tourists. Therefore, it’s not a surprise that people tend to talk about Nordic noir, for instance, when it comes to crime series taking place somewhere in the North. I agree with Radio Times TV editor Alison Graham who says that Scandinavian dramas treat us as adults, and “[n]ot just [because of] the ability to follow a long, multi stranded, and complex story, but because they are quite fearless in playing around with expectations. Major characters are killed off, and there is never any kind of ‘redemptive’ aspect to the story.”1

“We have managed to give universal issues a local flavour, reflecting the Scandinavian way of life with its own editing, pace and narrative styles”. More precisely, writers have managed to create a glocal – meaning both global and local – story. Indeed, Redvall has emphasized the significance of ‘one vision’ in both her lecture given during the course of Scandinavian Film and Television held by University of Copenhagen and her text on institutional authorship and creative agency. “Having a first dogma insisting that the writer should be at the centre of the production process and be treated in respect of the concept of ‘one vision’ or a second dogma specifying the need for ‘double storytelling’ does communicate a certain idea of how to make television series.”3

Scandinavian countries, especially Denmark, mainly export crime series. Series like The Killing or The Bridge provide excellent examples of TV shows that are able to attract both national and international audiences. This specific genre gives the opportunity to the viewers to experience excitement, fear, hope and anger at the same time. In addition to that, they also become part of the investigation, and as a consequence of that they are able to create their own theories.

Authenticity, ordinariness and realism with a certain extent of darkness and irony comprise the Scandinavian/Nordic style, even if we talk about other kinds of series. I admire the fact that Scandinavian/Nordic authors and/or creators in different fields of art and culture are able to face their limits and imperfection. It shows self-consciousness and allows to portray fictional characters as ordinary human beings who might – or actually – exist somewhere among us. People behind the popular TV shows know that standing on the ground of realism infected by darkness and irony creates space for completely ordinary characters to become the heroes of others. And this is exactly what happens in Real Humans, which shows the characteristics mentioned above, even though it’s not a crime series. It has a story that is both local and global as it meditates on universal social issues, and in spite of the scientific theme its plot is absorbed by realism and ordinariness. We follow the Engman family and some hubots, who are trying to bring about changes in society where, according to some, being different is hundred per cent unacceptable. But who can define what is normal anyway?

Despite the importance of the genre, the plot always plays crucial role. SVT’s drama boss, Christian Wikander says,

The series takes place in a parallel universe portraying Sweden as a country where it is completely natural

However, the ultimate success behind the Scandinavian television shows is definitely that authentic outcome that originates in the unique and well-balanced blend of the genre, the plot and the style. Other important factors are the reflections of the shows upon society and the challenges that people have to face and overcome. “Crime fiction [...] in one way or another is based on a realistic way of seeing, which reflects the problems of society.”2

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to possess a hubot or more. You are probably wondering by now what a hubot is exactly. Hubots are androids that have different roles in society; for instance, they are factory workers, servants, and what is more, you can even play Paintball with them. Besides the hubots who are programmed and do whatever their owners wish them to do, there is a group of free “hubots” who have been designed by David Eischer in a way that they behave just like us as people; they have free will and are able to develop feelings and desires, and some of them are evil and want to exploit and rule others. So it really is time to remember the question asked in the title: What does it mean to be human? I assume we all have some ideas, but do we have a clear and exact answer to that question? This ambiguity is the base of the conflict unfolding in the series. A great percentage of people do not like hubots, and what is more, they want to destroy all of them. They see them partly as objects that have one goal in life, namely to serve their owners who can turn them off whenever and wherever they want, partly something dangerous that can and will attack people at some point. Although it might go a little bit too far, I still do think that being owned, sold, bought and exploited as most of the hubots – should – remind us of the victims of the organised human and organ trafficking business. These serious issues are not discussed per se but we can find some hints of them. What we can see, though, is that relatively many human(-like) – and story-wise important – individuals die during the two seasons of the show, just like in any other Scandinavian/Nordic series. Nice ones and bad ones pass away, too, and here we reach another point of the human existence: death. We all know we are going to die some time, but do we all– have to – die? Being partly science fiction Real Humans does not take no as an answer. Though, not the old tactic that is freezing ourselves to be woken up later on is the way how people ‘survive’, or should I say resurrect? To be able to avoid real(?) death one can choose to be cloned, and then live like a hubot happily ever after. But is life so great to live forever, even if just as a machine? What makes someone or something human: the soul or the brain? While death is viewed as a taboo topic in most cultures, and therefore we don’t really want to build a dialogue or a monologue on it, unless we are George Carlin, for example, poli-

tics is something that provides plenty of topics to talk about, especially in Sweden nowadays. Without doubt, we all have experienced the emergence of several slightly or extremely radical political parties across Europe. The series also reflects upon this phenomenon: In Real Humans a party called Real Humans tries to gain political influence, meanwhile it has been already operating and educating [sic] the member of its own youth movement. However, I find somewhat misleading the outfit (uniform) of the members of the youth organisation, which make one think of skinheads who have different ‘branches’ – not all skinheads are racist and discriminate others. (But this is part of another discussion that might take place at another time.) What is significant here is that the members of Real Humans proclaim their views on hubots wherever they go and are not afraid of taking actions against them. Discrimination, aggression, anger, disappointment and the lack of knowledge feed upon their feelings. However, there are those who fight for equality and the hubots’ rights. Indeed, Real Humans depicts a Swedish society that bears some resemblance to today’s Sweden, and generally speaking, to some other countries as well. While hubots represent the immigrants, one can also find similarities between the radical political party, its youth organisation, the Swedish Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna), which has become the third biggest party in Sweden during the latest parliamentary election, and its youth organisation. Still, Lars Lundström, the creator of Real Humans, has mentioned the relationship between people and machines as the basic idea of the series. Let’s find out more from the interview!

what actually is a real human?

Interview with lars Lundström, c r e at o r o f r e a l h u m a n s Barbara: How did you get the idea of creating a TV show like Real Humans? Lars: I’ve had this idea since 2006. The technical development, together with how people have received it and with everything else that has become an integrated part of a sort of greater universal human intelligence, has contributed to the origin of the idea. But even an interest in how we, people, as race react and interact when the borders between machines and people start to disappear has been a driving force behind Real Humans. In addition to these, the opportunity to use this against a metaphorical plan and to hold this as a mirror to show how our world looks today inspired me. Did you think any particular actors or actresses when you created your characters? No, not from the very beginning. Characters are only different energies and functions in a story. When the actors and actresses come in to the design process, they take over these energies in a way and create the characters that I take as a starting point later on. The title is Real Humans. Those who don’t like “hubots” call themselves real humans, however, I think the focus is on the hubots, not on the people. At the end of the second season we could also follow a discussion about what it means to be human, and then Mimi and Florentine (hubots designed by David Eischer) were called individuals. So I’m wondering: Who are those real humans that the title is talking about?

Lars: In Sweden the series has received just a little attention, as an odd bird, as so many people have had difficulties to sort out that they are accustomed to consider as Swedish. That is why I think a lot of them have found it difficult to relate to the series in a relaxing way. The public that I know and that has put such baggage aside is the youth who adopted the series in another way. I am humble and hardly think that a TV series could change society. My very first ambition, regardless of everything, is to keep up, but in a remarkable way. The opportunity that stimulates such thoughts and reflections in someone might lead us to something great in the future, who knows? What do you think about the success of the show? Have you expected such national and international success? One never expects success. Success is always unexpected because it is so unusual. We are happy. The subject and the genre have brought cross-boundary fascination, we realized this very soon. It is not a locally grounded story but a story about our world today, created through a premise and a theme that fascinates many.

Real Humans is available worldwide on DVD.

Real Humans is indeed ambiguous, just like you are suggesting. The meaning is that one will ask the question: What is actually a real human? One can say that Sweden in the series is similar to the real Sweden in a certain way. How have the Swedish public reacted? Do you think a TV show – or a film – could bring about social changes in society?

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Lars and the real girl

On Authorial Ghosting in Nymphomaniac

nymphomaniac 64

lars and the real girl

words: mikkel frederiksen A dark, grimy alley: snow falls melts, and drips onto the lid of a garbage can as the camera pans in complete silence. The camera fixates on a large, square hole, slowly zooms in, and consumes the world in darkness. Cut to Joe, battered, bruised, crumpled in a heap, unmoving in the middle of the alley. From complete silence, chaos erupts as rock music blares over Joe’s still form, the aural indicator of an uncaring world. If rock bottom is a place, it’s surely here. It is from here that Nymphomaniac unfolds. Nymphomaniac is ostensibly a film about sex: Joe recounts her incalculable sexual exploits in an attempt to make sense of her life as if her present misfortune is a direct consequence of the life she’s led. Told to Seligman, a Good Samaritan and erudite loner, Joe’s story is primarily one woman’s struggle to live within society’s accepted norms for women, including love, marriage, children, and most importantly, sex. However, Nymphomaniac also exists in relation to Trier’s two preceding films, Antichrist (2009) and Melancholia (2011), together forming what has been named the ‘depression’-trilogy, a series of films born, and dealing with, Trier’s own neuroses. Together, they form a three-part mosaic of the darkness within man: human loss, its capacity for evil, its reconciliation with its own mortality, and, in the case of Nymphomaniac, its capacity for self-destruction and search for identity. It is in light of their personal relevance to von Trier that Nymphomaniac, and its question of the individual’s right of self-realization, becomes an even more compelling narrative. Easily identifiable as an impromptu therapy-session, Joe’s decision to tell Seligman her story is mostly for her own benefit and it sees her try and make sense of her life and actions, but more importantly herself, emphasizing the struggle as caused by her sexual exploits, activities that go against the societal grain and its imposed values. It’s a story of Joe coming to terms with who or what she is, a journey made incredibly difficult by the taboo nature of the female as sexual being, and this same controversy is exacerbated by Joe’s defiance of these societal constraints in embracing the labeling as a nymphomaniac. While Joe’s story is her own, the central contestation of Joe’s right to express her sexuality, her personality, bears a curious resemblance to Lars von Trier’s own personal struggles. As a result, there is a compelling argument to be made that Joe in many ways act as a proxy for Trier, that she provides an outlet for Trier’s frustration, and that the film as a whole is a vilification of all the societal hypocrisy that von Trier feels himself a victim of. Most important is that Nymphomaniac, when kept to its core themes of self-realization and acceptance in the face of societal outrage, is autobiographical.

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Reviews: Best of 2014

The ‘Department Q’ Films The keeper of lost causes 88

the keeper of lost causes

reviews

kvinden i buret

n i ko l a j l i e k a a s | fa r e s fa r e s | d i r : m i k k e l N ø r g a a r d | 9 7 m i n s c r i m e / t h r i l l e r

words: kirsti jungklaus-kuszmider The Nordic Noir genre has been on the map for a good number of years now, but the fact of the matter, which is now all too easy to forget, is that it wormed its way in to our hearts first and foremost via the literary genre – film and television came later. Adapted from the best-selling novel by Jussi Adler-Olsen, the recent film, The Keeper of Lost Causes is another piece of Nordic Noir to come to our screens from literature. The film is the first of the 3-part “Department Q” series, which focuses on a generically typical yet still fresh Copenhagen detective by the name of Carl Mørck. It would be easy to just rattle off what merits the film did or did not have, but any book to film adaptation deserves to be considered within its context, and The Keeper of Lost Causes is no exception. Nordic Noir is a genre that has a reputation for being of a high standard. It’s serious. No fluff. No silly games. And fortunately, The Keeper of Lost Causes manages to maintain this tradition despite the fact that book to film adaptations are frequently below par. (For example, the adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo could only dream of matching the intensity of the original text. But that’s another story.) This story goes as per the following: Police detective Carl Mørck, played by Scandinavian crime regular Nikolaj Lie Kaas, has been taken out of the homicide department after a tragic incident on the job. He is to run a newly created department for unsolved crimes where the only thing he’s expected to solve is a bit of paperwork. Mørck is naturally disappointed to be pushed in to a seemingly slow retirement, but then along comes his new assistant Asssad (Fares Fares), who sees a position in this new department as a step up in the right direction. Somewhat reluctantly encouraged, Mørck takes up the case of Merete Lynggaard (Sonja Richter), a politician who vanished off a ferry boat 5 years earlier while travelling with her mentally disabled younger brother, Uffe. Errors in the initial case start to surface, and it isn’t long before the grim – even visceral – details unfold as the film shifts back and forth between the past and the present in a race to get to the bottom of what happened to Merete Lynggaard.

As a whole, The Keeper of Lost Causes is a solid, if at times safe adaptation of Jussi Adler-Olsen’s first novel. Adapted for the screen by veteran writer Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair, The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo) the narrative remained as true to the text as it possibly could have within the constraints of the average 90-minute film. Sure, there were details missing that could have made the film richer, and at times the story felt rather straightforward. But neither detracted from what was still an entertaining 97 minutes of movie night. And given that the book on which it was based is a lengthy 490 pages, one has to admit that Nikolaj Arcel did a commendable job giving the film a concrete beginning, middle and end. Not to mention the fact that he maintained the most essential aspect of the story: the unlikely relationship between Mørck and his partner Assad. Without which, the film would have failed. Other worthy mentions are Mikkel Nørgaard’s direction, which captured the customary bleak atmosphere to a tee, and the solid acting performances of the entire cast, but most notably that of Sonja Richter, who played the ill-fated Merete Lynggaard. Overall, The Keeper of Lost Causes proved a decent start to the “Department Q” series. Like most adaptations, it gave the impression there was more to come – although the film can safely stand on its own – it will naturally be even better when considered a part to a greater whole. The second installment, The Absent One, will likely be released in the UK come January. Chances are, it will be worth a viewing.

The Keeper of Lost Causes will be released on DVD in the coming months. Details will be posted on Cinema Scandinavia

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the absent one Fasandræberne

n i ko l a j l i e k a a s | fa r e s fa r e s | D I R : M i k a e l N ø r g a a r d | 1 9 9 m i n s c r i m e / t h r i l l e r

words: Frederick BovÉ Rarely in the history of Danish cinema has there been a safer bet than the film-series Zentropa is currently making on Jussi Adler-Olsens books about Department Q. The books about the investigative squad consisting of Carl Mørck, Assad and their assistant Rose has sold over 1.2 million books in Denmark, and 6 million in the rest of the world. With actors like Nikolaj Lie Kaas, and Swede Fares Fares playing the central detectives, as well as Sonja Richter and Pilou Asbæk playing victims and murderers in the two films, the series doesn’t lack star-power. And then there is director Mikkel Nørgård, who with these two films as well as his debut comedy Klovn has made three of the four biggest box-office openings in Danish history. It should have come as no surprise when The Absent One broke box office records at its opening in October. And really, it should only come as a slightly bigger surprise that the film is as enjoyable, exciting, and just all around good as it is. The slight surprise at the quality of the film comes from the fact that an adaptation of Jussi Adler-Olsen’s books could quite well have gone quite wrong. I will freely admit that I’ve only managed to make it through a combined 50 pages of his crime series, but already from that small sampling it was clear that Mikkel Nørgård made some very smart adaptational choices. Adler-Olsen is not very good at language, but the film lets us learn about the characters through the way that they act and look, rather than what they say. And AdlerOlsen’s crime plots aren’t really the main draw either. I have yet to meet anybody who didn’t figure out the story behind the central kidnapping in The Keeper of Lost Causes way earlier than the detectives did, and in The Absent One, the film just comes right out and states the identity of the killers pretty much from the beginning. What the books seem to have, and what the films wisely focus on, is a tremendous sense of mood. The Absent One takes us from the highest highs of society to the lowest lows. From the modernistic

luxury homes north of Copenhagen to the homeless individuals dwelling in the rundown areas in the center. Nørgård contrasts these two spheres brilliantly. All the rich bad guys have homes or offices with amazing views over water, they are masters and controllers of the world. The poor people live in cramped and claustrophobic areas, that doesn’t oversee anything. If this sounds like a simplistic film where rich=bad, then that’s kind of true. The series is about detectives solving old and dormant cases,but really, as with so much Nordic Crime Fiction, it’s about looking at the sins and crimes of Danish society. In the first film, it was a Social Democrat whose past came back to haunt her. This time, it’s entitled rich psychopaths ruining everything around them. Pilou Asbæk is masterful as Ditlev Pramm, the embodiment of careless capitalism, with hipster glasses and carefully groomed facial hair, attacking, using and threatening everybody to get his way. David Dencik has the less impressive role as Ulrik Dybbøl, the perverted aristocrat with the big country mansion. They are types, but they are well-made types This is not a particularly subtle film. We do not get a sense of the brokenness of detective. Mørck from Lie Kaas’ performance as much as from the bandages and bloodshot red eyes he acquires from the film. And we understand the depravity of the bad guys from how they present themselves. The image of the upper-class killers dressed entirely in black clothes and a white hoods owes quite a lot as an image to film-monsters like Alex from A Clockwork Orange or Peter and Paul from Haneke’s Funny Games, but it’s an effective creation that remains scary throughout the whole film. And as the pieces of the crime plot falls into place, the film changes into more of a horror film, the scenography becomes fully theatrical, and characters always seems able to turn up at the most inopportune moment without explanation. That does not detract from the film, though. It only makes it more effective.

reviews

speed walking kapgang

pilou asbæk | sidse babett knudsen | dir: niels arden oplev | 108 mins Drama

words: taylor sinople

speed walking

Niels Arden Oplev (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) returns to Denmark after working in the United States for several years with this uncharacteristically tender coming of age comedy. Over the course of a few, rough weeks, fourteen-yearold Martin (Villads Bøye) navigates a fluid, burgeoning sexuality, processes grief after the sudden death of his mother, and competes in a speed walking competition. The year is 1976 in this Jutland-set story of a boy adapting to his country’s rapid transition to a more liberal era. Writers of coming-of-age films sometimes forget (or maybe choose to ignore) that growing up can be a pretty screwedup experience. Sure, young hearts get broken over first loves all the time in the movies, but there’s a wild sort of destructiveness to childhood that’s not always captured onscreen. The ideals and pitfalls of the adult world are sometimes imposed on adolescents before they’re ready for it. Oplev decided to adapt this story for the screen before Morten Kirk Forest even finished his hugely popular autobiographical novel of the same name. Martin’s story of coping and celebrating is a standout portrayal of childhood that’s full of humor and yet never turns away from its darker moments. Martin gets himself into some seedy situations,

and explores his sexuality with both his girlfriend (Kraka Donslund Nielsen) and best friend (Frederik Winther Rasmussen). Speed Walking is an effort that proves confronting realities of childhood is the best way to understand it.

Lead actor Villads Bøye gives a bold, first-time performance as Martin and dares to hit every note Oplev asks of him. The process of grieving his mother’s death takes him through denial, anger, and hysterics, and each step rings true. Bøye is flanked by his older brother who struggles to move past the denial phase, and his father, who is at a total loss for how to raise a family on his own. Oplev shot the film in eight and a half weeks on a four million dollar budget and clearly took great delight in designing a film that takes place in the 70’s. The American rock soundtrack includes hits like The Knack’s “My Sharona,” making this portrait of self-discovery during an imperfect childhood a perfect blend of Dazed and Confused and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The only lingering question is what the speed walking tie-in is all about, to which Oplev remarks, “It’s kind of a stupid sport…but it was popular at the time.” Speed Walking is a consistently hilarious, all-around worthwhile effort – a real highlight of Danish cinema in 2014.

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of horses and men hross í ross

i n g va r e g g e r t s i g u r đ s s o n | c h a r l o t t e b ø v i n g | d i r : b e n e d i k t e r l i n g s s o n | 8 1 m i n s c o m e dy / d r a m a taylor sinople

An Icelandic farming community is the center of a series of overlapping vignettes that explore relationships between humans and horses in Of Horses and Men. And it’s not as weird as it sounds. Horses today function as both a utility and a pet to us, but writer-director Benedikt Erlingsson hopes you may just see them as equals by the end of the film. From the proud gait of a show horse to a look of attraction – lust, even – between stallion and mare, Erlingsson captures remarkable humanistic “performances” from the horses featured on-screen. We recognize ourselves in them. Whether this film does much for you or not will depend on how much you’re willing to put into analyzing the film. For example, I was struck by how the horses allow themselves to be boxed in by a simple rope stretched around posts to form a pen. They could easily march straight through the imaginary barrier, but they don’t. Do we do this, too? What imaginary borders do we, as humans, allow to control and restrict us? This moment of clarity was powerful, but wasn’t duplicated as often as I’d have liked in the film. For those worried that the concept may be a bit heavy-handed, Of Horses and Men could actually stand for more cleverness. The first of six stories featured here is an outstanding short film in its own right – it draws lines between man and horse that I felt excited to explore – but the rest that follows comes up under-whelming as Erlingsson fails to again reach that height of storytelling. Still, a small idea gets a small movie, and at only 80 minutes this is a bite-sized eyeopener that will shift your world-view in its own slight way.

how to stop a wedding

hur man stoppar ett bröllop cleo paraskevopoulou 92

No, How To Stop A Wedding is not a Swedish version of Julia Roberts’s on-screen adventures back in 1997, when she was desperately trying to ruin her best friend’s engagement to someone else. Director Drazen Kuljanin’s debut feature film is a 72-minutes long encounter, captured solely during the five-hour train ride between Malmö and Stockholm, Sweden. Philip (Christian Ehrnstén) and Amanda (Lina Sundén) are two strangers who happen to be travelling in the same compartment, heading to the same wedding, one that none of them is particularly happy about. She is carrying a book about revenge while his is about time-travel. It would be quite accurate to say that, as it turns out, they have both chosen a story that sounds like their own. He is the romantic, the hopeful dreamer. He is trapped in a fairy-tale that he would like to go back to and which he can only imagine ending happily, because he is “that kind of guy”. She is tense, bitter, angry and sad. Is it possible to even out the angles in such a situation of opposites and do those two have enough in common to make it happen? Despite being shot in a limited space and with visual variety in setting coming almost entirely from the changing view of the speeding train, the film refuses to become flat or monotonous. Grounding its narrative and cinematic strength on interesting and brilliantly paced dialogue, as well as on wise adaptation of camera movement, it has no need of landscape shots or catchy songs to appeal to the viewer. A lot of close-ups record and enhance the emotional curve of the characters while the score fits very well, working supportively yet quite efficiently as the story unfolds. To cut a long story short, How to stop a wedding is the result of a challenging filming process, an indie film not always technically perfect but definitely engaging from start to end. The cast gives a solid and subtle performance, especially Sundén with whom the director has also worked in his short film 2038. Regarding to the plot, you might have come across similar stories before, but this is still worth watching for it resembles a photographic realization of thoughts. It compels one to see Philip and Amanda not just as a couple of people who interact and communicate, but mostly as mirrors who provided each other the surfaces on which to reflect and study their inner selves. Irrespective of what happens next, those five hours on the train have been a reminder that living facing the past, can be as annoying as travelling on a seat that faces backwards. Unless you pre-book one that’s comfortable, you will most likely embark on a journey throughout which you will be feeling nauseous and grumpy.

reviews

we are the best!

we are the best! Vi är bäst!

m i r a b a r k h a m m a r | m i r a g r o s i n | D i r : l u k a s m o o dys s o n | 102 mins Drama/music

zacK miller We Are The Best! opens with a phone conversation so recognizable that it could just as easily have been a collective audience daydream, recalling teenage days spent locked in our rooms, complaining on the phone to our friends about how everyone else’s life is cooler than ours. It sets a tone that follows through the next hour and a half, reminding us of our younger selves so that the excess weight of forced nostalgia can be dropped as we immediately connect with the characters. Shot with a documentary feel, the film is a loosely plotted slice of life focused on three pre-teen girls. Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) and Klara (Mira Grosin) are best friends who decide – on a whim, and to spite the older boys who tease them – to start a punk band. The fact that neither of them plays an instrument is only ever a secondary concern to them, but when they see Hedvig (Liv LeMoyne) playing classical guitar in a school talent show, they invite her to join their ranks. From there, a host of familiar events play out as the girls goof off in school, go to their first party, and fight over boys. If the last sentence makes the film sound trite or formulaic, it’s only because this is such a keen rehashing of the pubescent comedies and dramas we’ve come to know. Unlike so many before him, Moodysson has no interest in pushing these girls towards some grand climactic event, like the crest

of a wave that they can ride into the next phase of their adolescence. The third act hook – a Christmas concert at a community centre in a neighbouring town – gleefully subverts any notion of coming-of-age-ness as the girls are booed off stage, still looking like they’re having the time of their lives. The spirit of the film lives in the understanding that growing up doesn’t happen in one spotlighted scene, but rather a little at a time, and that sometimes having a blast with your friends is just as memorable as any self-important life lesson. Substantial praise is due to the three leads, all making their acting debut. In excellent performances that are mature beyond their young years, the girls are charmingly awkward and unprecedentedly believable – often it feels like they aren’t even acting, a feat that is duly impressive for a child performer. The best of the three is Mira Grosin, who is the heart of the film just as Klara is to the band. Grosin is as earnest as Klara is fickle; she almost deadpans her lines with a hilarious and wide-eyed conviction, which is made even funnier by her constant willingness to drop her principles and change the rules whenever they no longer suit her. What all three convey best, though, is the struggle between individuality and embracing a lifestyle; they’re stuck in the youthful limbo of not yet having found themselves, but they’re not afraid to keep searching until they do. Based on a graphic novel by Coco Moodysson, wife of director Lukas, We Are The Best! is meant to be somewhat autobiographical. Herein lies the film’s greatest strength: she isn’t telling just her own story. This is a film for musicians; for outcasts; for children of the 80’s; for anyone who has ever been embarrassed by their parents or a bad haircut. In short, this is a film for everyone.