Life in Denmark
Director Jorgen Leth
Countries Denmark
Duration 37 min
Synopsis
Life in Denmark is a film about Denmark, as its title indicates. In it a number of Danes are invited into a black space to make small, edited versions of their own personal or professional lives. We meet a num- ber of young unmarried women from a country town, a farmer who starts by describing his work and then has coffee and dances a waltz with his wife; a traffic cop, a political figure, a singing boy, a fishmonger. Jørgen Leth and his family appear in a number of scenes, during one of which Jørgen Leth unpacks a shopping bag. Concurrently the film contains a number of crazier elements: four naked poets take up position in the empty space, a silent man strikes a typewriter with both hands, and the actor Jørgen Ryg makes great play of a number of silly activities. The insanity of the purpose of the film – a catalogue of life in Denmark – is emphasised by the subtitles that con- tinually provide an anchor for the visual content, rarely saying what one would expect. The various scenes consist of a single camera angle from which the picture content is slowly approached via a camera movement, or several angles that move correspondingly closer to or merely show the object, such as a cyclist balancing on a bicycle, from different angles. However the camera does leave the secure confines of the studio to capture a series of postcard views of a Danish town, a wood, a country highway, and the sea, and makes a moving visit to a Copenhagen apartment. During one scene in the studio the camera suddenly swings away as if it has lost interest in the person in the picture: a filmic trick familiar from Ophelias Flowers. The boundless black space makes the exhibited Danes and objects seem colourful, radiant and clear. Danish Film Institute
Life in Denmark is a film about Denmark, as its title indicates. In it a number of Danes are invited into a black space to make small, edited versions of their own personal or professional lives. We meet a num- ber of young unmarried women from a country town, a farmer who starts by describing his work and then has coffee and dances a waltz with his wife; a traffic cop, a political figure, a singing boy, a fishmonger. Jørgen Leth and his family appear in a number of scenes, during one of which Jørgen Leth unpacks a shopping bag. Concurrently the film contains a number of crazier elements: four naked poets take up position in the empty space, a silent man strikes a typewriter with both hands, and the actor Jørgen Ryg makes great play of a number of silly activities. The insanity of the purpose of the film – a catalogue of life in Denmark – is emphasised by the subtitles that con- tinually provide an anchor for the visual content, rarely saying what one would expect. The various scenes consist of a single camera angle from which the picture content is slowly approached via a camera movement, or several angles that move correspondingly closer to or merely show the object, such as a cyclist balancing on a bicycle, from different angles. However the camera does leave the secure confines of the studio to capture a series of postcard views of a Danish town, a wood, a country highway, and the sea, and makes a moving visit to a Copenhagen apartment. During one scene in the studio the camera suddenly swings away as if it has lost interest in the person in the picture: a filmic trick familiar from Ophelias Flowers. The boundless black space makes the exhibited Danes and objects seem colourful, radiant and clear. Danish Film Institute