Denmark
Adam Sweeting
After last week's spectacularly unconvincing foray into saving Africa (usually the last refuge of a doomed statesperson), Birgitte Nyborg returned to the centre of Denmark's political life for the concluding pair of episodes in series two. Back amid themes of political infighting, media skulduggery and personal relationships under pressure, Borgen had, amid sighs of relief, come home to where it belonged.Immediately, crisis loomed. Birgitte (Sidse Babett Knudsen) had to bite the bullet and accept that her anxiety-stricken daughter Laura (Freja Riemann) needed more than phone calls and a Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Is it possible to have a surfeit of Danish coalition politics? Anyone who recently ingested 10 hours of The Killing III may well be asking themselves as they sit down to a second serving of Borgen. Borgen is, in essence, The Killing without the killing: intense multi-party wrangles with a side order of family dysfunction. To think we’ve waited a year.The odd thing has changed. As played by Sidse Babett Knudsen, Birgitte Nyborg (statsminister to you; Birgitte to the politely baying pack at press conferences) used to complain that she couldn’t fit into her smart new two-piece, but looks a bit Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
I hope it isn't giving too much away for iPlayer catcher-uppers to say that in the end Sarah Lund never did get that undemanding desk job. Instead, the third outing for this ferociously gripping Danish series dragged us screaming and biting our nails right down to the wire, and managed to reach a conclusion simultaneously shocking and saddening yet, in a way, satisfying too.From the start, the third series has been drenched in the anguish of loss and the pain of separation. The running theme has been the hunt for the kidnapped girl Emilie Zeuthen and the man who took her, but, apart from the Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Some say director Thomas Vinterberg has never equalled his triumph with Festen (1998), but with The Hunt it's time for everyone to think again. An assured and claustrophobic drama which ruthlessly picks apart the seemingly civilised facade of a small Danish town, it's a film that reverberates in the imagination and proves yet again what a fine actor Mads Mikkelsen is.Mikkelsen plays Lucas, a recently divorced 40-year-old working as a kindergarten assistant following the closure of the school which previously employed him. Though he's still trying to reassemble the disordered pieces of his Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Zipping her trousers while coming out of a toilet cubicle, Sarah Lund continues the phone conversation that was on-going while she was in there. Making for a sink to wash her hands, she ignores the puppyish man trying to attract her attention. Nothing is going to distract Chief Inspector Lund, whether it’s the call of nature or the new police kid on the block.The third and final series of The Killing doesn’t begin exactly like the second, with Sofie Gråbøl’s Lund marking time checking what comes off ships arriving in Denmark. Instead, we find her in another sort of holding pattern. On her Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
How much suffering is it possible to take? Can suffering be depicted on film in a way which evokes its true depths? Is it possible to draw anything positive from a film that succeeds in capturing the essence of suffering? In short order: the human spirit can surprise; yes; yes. Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc) is a film that still affects and has an ominous power, despite being silent, being made in 1928 and eschewing the overly demonstrative. It’s also strikingly timeless.Dreyer has been celebrated this year and the opportunity to assess the films Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
There was a time when we’d have felt withdrawal symptoms over the absence of The West Wing or The Sopranos, or The Wire; invariably it was American television that had its hooks in us. Now it’s Danish. And it’s time for a fix. Cue The Killing, which returns to add its own particular chill to the winter.Saturday sees the start of the third, and final adventure for Sarah Lund, the detective whose instinctive brilliance is not matched by any sort of good fortune. In the ground-breaking season one, Lund was blamed for the death of her partner, and solved the murder of a young girl only for a Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It’s not quite Iggy Pop strutting across the hands of the crowd, but Efterklang’s singer Casper Clausen's departure from the stage reinforces the bond the Danish mood musicians have with their fans. Trying to keep upright while wobbling on the backs of seats, he is held in position by those close by. This isn’t about attracting attention, but a bridging of the gap between artist and audience. Earlier, Clausen and bassist Rasmus Stolberg had retired to the side of the stage to take in the Northern Sinfonia’s performance of their music. At times, Efterklang are as much spectator as musicians. Read more ...
emma.simmonds
Featuring a towering, Cannes-award-winning performance from Mads Mikkelsen, The Hunt (Jagten) is a humane and horrifying story of the power of accusation from Danish director Thomas Vinterberg (Festen).Mikkelsen plays Lucas, a kindergarten teacher in a Danish village. Though he’s a natural with the kids and is popular and connected locally, he’s a taciturn, somewhat enigmatic figure whose recent divorce has left him alone and missing his son. When his best friend’s tiny daughter Klara (Annika Wedderkopp) develops a crush on him, his rejection of her causes her to blurt out the most damaging Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Sometimes, it doesn’t matter who you are. You might be a charismatic performer, or the most energetic band in the world. But some settings can’t be outperformed. Holding Berlin Festival at the city’s astonishing out-of-commission Tempelhof airport sets a challenge that’s almost impossible to rise to. Although it began working in the late 1920s, the surviving buildings were completed in 1941 and form a single block over a kilometre long, wrapped around an open quadrangle. The gleaming, pale buildings dwarf anything.The entrance hall is a cathedral to Albert Speer’s vision of a modern, world- Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“I have done stuff,” says Stefan. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve done this." He has been arrested driving the car of a woman killed a short time earlier. Although an instant suspect, it’s soon clear his story and that of the victim’s sister don’t tally. Murder wasn’t a whodunit or a procedural, but a point-of-view rundown of the aftermath of murder. It was also grim, unflinching and memorable.Directed by Denmark’s Birger Larsen, who was behind a few episodes each of The Killing’s first series and Those Who Kill, the Nottingham-set Murder had familiar Danish touches: a story seen from the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“It’s a place where human beings don’t belong,” says Efterklang’s Rasmus Stolberg. “It’s a very inspiring place, but a very sad place”. The Danish band’s new album, Piramida, is built around sounds they recorded in Pyramiden, a former Russian mining settlement on the island of Spitsbergen, north of Norway, close to the North Pole. It was abandoned in 1998. The climate means nothing decays.“Hollow Mountain” opens Piramida, and Efterlkang have chosen to premier the film for the track on theartsdesk. “We don’t consider this a video, more a visual piece that follows the song,” explains Stolberg Read more ...