helen-carlsson-fritzson Awesome! I have not enough of words, to say how much i felt for this great movie/series.Thank you Danmark! I loved it, and every actors are super!!!:-) I'd love: The History, the love,the hate,The death, the born, the friendship,the sadness,the horror,the poorness,the rich, the environment, the feelings and the sound of War, It Is absolutely perfect! This film/series must be seen! Once again, thank you for this art, of movie and I hope to see more from you in the future.All my love to you!MVH: Helen,Carlson,Fritzson-Gothenborg-Sweden

Tweekums This Danish drama opens in the present day as troubled teenager Claudia is forced to visit Severin; an elderly baron; while there she reads to him the diaries of his grandmother Inge who lived through the tumultuous events of the mid-nineteenth century. In the aftermath of 1st Schleswig War spirits are high in Denmark; they were victorious and life seems idyllic; however there are dark clouds on the horizon; Lutheran minister Monrad sees the victory as a sign that the Danes are Gods chosen people and after entering politics intends to integrate the Duchy of Schleswig into Denmark against the will of its German speaking population and likely to lead to another war against the Prussians. In the run up to this impending war we are introduced to some of those it will effect; most notably Inge and two brothers who both love her, Peter and Laust Jensen; the son on the current baron Didrich and returned soldier Johan. As the story progresses we observes these characters and those around them as relationships develop and change and ultimately they head to a disastrous war that not all of them will survive.Before watching this series I confess I hadn't heard of the 2nd Schleswig War so can't really comment on how accurately the events were portrayed; I can however say as a piece of drama it was gripping if occasionally difficult viewing. The episodes before the war starts serve to introduce the protagonists and the politics of the time and by the time the first shot is fired we know full well who the heroes and villains are. The battle scenes, which are possibly the best I've seen in a television production, are dramatic in a way that is gruelling rather than exciting… war is a filthy, bloody business. The cast do a fine job; surprisingly it is the villains who stand out most; Nicolas Bro and Pilou Asbæk are great as Monrad and Didrich two of the least sympathetic characters imaginable; the former a religious zealot whose views wouldn't have been out of place in Nazi Germany and the latter who is a coward and a rapist. That isn't to say the rest of the cast aren't fine too; Marie Tourell Søderberg, as Inge, Jens Sætter-Lassen as Peter, Jakob Oftebro as Laust and Søren Malling as Johan. Some reviewers have been critical of the dialogue but not speaking Danish and relying on the subtitles I didn't notice this myself. Overall I'd recommend this to anybody looking for a historical drama with fairly deep themes; just be warned some of the content will offend some viewers.

Paul Ackerley Outstanding, magical visual, story-telling. Compelling from start to finish. Ignore the pompous reviews about the contemporary story-line, dialogue, magic-realism and apparent historical simplification. It's nonsense. This is cinematic excellence and as powerful as the best Thomas Hardy adaptations or a series like the original Brideshead Revisited. The battle-scenes are as visceral and powerful as those in Saving Private Ryan or Downfall. The political landscape that precipitated the war is carefully set-out for those of us that had never previously come across this element of nineteenth century European history but never at the cost of engaging with the emotional depth of the piece. The characters are given time to develop and have real depth. Brilliantly directed. Immerse yourself.

vaderis In a nutshell this high budget TV series looks very nice (and the music is also decent) but the script is probably one of the worst in the history of Danish television.It turns out that the director (Ole Bornedal) fired not one, not two but THREE talented and successful scriptwriters from the production team and decided to write the script himself. Big mistake! Ole Bornedal later said that he considered himself among the very best dialogue writers IN THE WORLD. Well, if dialogue like "hi" - "hello" is the very best, then he is pretty good. But in any other world than the one of Bornedal's mind the dialogue is amateurish at best.To a native Danish speaker the lines themselves sound like the speech bubbles you used to make when you were drawing comic strips as a kid. I am not joking. After two of the main characters have had sex on the beach they stand up and scream "everything is awesome". And no, I am not kidding. The translator might choose to translate the line as "everything is splendid" but in any case it's bad. Really bad.Most of the actors are good actors but they end up looking like dilettantes at best. This is because of the lines and the incredibly shallow characters who can usually be described by one word (e.g. good/bad/mad/jovial). One character, Didrich (Pilou Asbæk), for instance is bad. He is the son of a nobleman and has participated in the previous war where he turned into a mean jerk. How does Bornedal demonstrate this? With any subtlety or nuances? No. He makes Didrich torture a gypsy, hit on a little girl, rape a gypsy woman, rape a cow with his rich friends etcetera. So basically to show that a character has flaws Bornedal makes that character a violent, pedophile rapist who is a fan of sex with animals. Apart from that he is of course cowardly, greedy and mean to the poor. On the other hand some characters are good. The gypsies for instance (even though they had absolutely no part in the actual history of the war or in the history of Denmark altogether) are of course wise, honest, merry healers who care about other people regardless of nationality or social standing. They are only involved in conflict when they are the victims and even then only one of them tries to get revenge (which of course fails so that they can still be the victims).Bornedal is either completely naive and amateurish or else he is trying to create some sort of dimwitted political propaganda with this TV series. Since 1864 is a story of war between nations, politics of course is a theme of the series. But in interviews Bornedal has also expressed his personal opinion on the politics of today. So some people have compared his opinion to his 1864 script, and the result does not look good. It seems like Bornedal's personal Marxist, anti patriotic and pro immigration / multi culture views have put a HUGE fingerprint on the script. But who knows? Maybe it's just a coincidence that the poor people and the immigrants of 1864 are perfectly good while the Danish middle and upper class people of 1864 are all corrupt. Maybe it's a coincidence that Inge (Marie Søderberg) who is the narrator has lines like "they come with their dark eyes and enrich our world" (about the gypsies). Maybe it's a coincidence that we are told no background story for the war which is simply portrayed like the absurd idea of mad nationalists (which is absolutely historically incorrect). Maybe it's all just a coincidence. But in any case the result is a train wreck. Please go see some other Danish TV series for comparison: They are usually very nuanced, intelligent and multi layered. This series is a demonstration of what happens when an arrogant director fires the entire scriptwriting team. It is one of the most amateurish and one dimensional scripts in television history.And I won't even go into the silliness of the character Johan who turns out to be a telepath/hypnotist/voodoo doctor. Nor will I go into the LOTR like scenes of this so-called historical drama. All that is beyond bad.Did I mention that this is the highest budget Danish TV series ever? The budget was 175 million DKR ($30 million) which is huge compared to other Danish TV series.One word: Bad.