Life in Denmark | WATCH DOCS

One hundred people gathered in the studio, including a professional cyclist, the Minister of Finance, a famous actress and a group of women from the province, stand in front of the camera as a representation of Danish society. Each sequence of the film, recorded with a static camera, is accompanied by a short description that seemingly tries to name what we are about to see: "Cyclist and his bicycle," "Strange man," "Couple with a lot of glasses." But this repetitiveness and obviousness become part of Letha’s rhetorical devices. He transforms the anthropological documentary into a kind of experiment that not only comments on the veneer, but also suggests that there is something deeper behind it: a cultural myth, a collective self-illusion or perhaps a national self-portrait. "Life in Denmark" is not so much a film about the Denmark familiar from travel guides, stereotypes and national narratives, but rather about its collective imagination. On Polish screens after over years since its Polish premiere, the film won the Silver Dragon Award in 1972 at the Krakow Film Festival. 

Weronika Adamowska