Denmark: Open sandwiches, challenging films and honest prose
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard
Denmark, the land of Hamlet, Kierkegaard and Carlsberg makes some of the most challenging films in the world. I know this because at the turn of the millennium I had got briefly obsessed with the Dogme 95 collective who vowed to create films based on the traditional values of story, acting, and theme. I was therefore looking forward to focussing on film during my week in Denmark and finding new films as challenging as The Idiots, Festen, or Breaking the Waves (which broke my heart in a cinema in Paris.) The week started well with Another Round, about some teachers who trial the4 theory that keeping blood alcohol at 0.05% makes you more creative and relaxed. The traumatic and comic results are all I hoped for. It’s another Danish classic that challenges, confuses and amuses all at the same time…
The film Men and chicken also does all these things, but just perhaps a little too well. When it finished my wife said “I think I’ve lost my innocence,” and I kind of knew what she meant. Set mainly in an abandoned asylum filled with mutant animals and homemade cheese, it is best I don’t describe it to you, for fear that I will spoil it or break you in some way…
This week’s food, on the other hand, is the sort of thing a doctor may prescribe, yellow split pea soup, rye bread open sandwiches (Smørrebrød) and an apple cake that disguises itself as a trifle (Æblekage). Less healthy perhaps are the sugar coated potatoes that they apparently eat at Christmas. This was quite apt as our Danish meal coincided with New Year’s Eve. We invited people round which enabled us to outsource the apple cake to some trifle-obsessed friends and focus on soup and pickles, washed down with Carlsberg, a drink I could happily never try again… The Copenhagen cocktail on the other hand is an experience to be savoured. I made it with Heering’s Cherry Brandy and, having bought a whole bottle, thought it would be rude not to also make a Singapore Sling while I was it…
…perhaps it was these cocktails that led to a surprise mid-party singalong of Wonderful Copenhagen, a song that was new to be, but which others somehow knew all the lyrics to. I found so few Danish musicians that this week’s playlist is mainly focussed on songs about Copenhagen instead.
And so to the novel, or should I say novels, as I found, Tove Ditlevson’s Childhood so riveting I ended up reading her entire Copenhagen Trilogy. It comes highly recommended by Patti Smith whose book “Just Kids” I adored. They are both masters of the simple sentence, which makes reading a pleasure, even when the stories are about childhood traumas (book 1), failed marriages (book 2) or the horrors of addiction (book 3). Yes, I realise I am not making this sound fun!
Well I guess that is about it, the Danes are also famous for their four day week so it is apt that my shortest blog is for one of my favourite countries so far. Next week I’ll be back in Africa, exploring the tiny country of Djibouti.
