søndag den 30. marts 2008

Flammen og Citronen


Det er stadig svært at blive enige om hvad man skal synes som dansker om besættelsestiden. Det synes jeg i hvertfald. Tyskerne har det på det punkt vist, om ikke bedre, så i hvertfald enklere. Flammen og Citronen er en historie om... Ja hvad er det egentlig en historie om? Det er en historie om besættelsestiden. Det er en historie om modstandsbevægelsen. Det er en historie om at vælge mellem at fraternisere eller være fanatisk. Skal vi svigte vores følelser og idealer i nutiden for fremtidens skyld? På det seneste har vi fået et mere balanceret forhold til danskernes rolle i krigen. Der var mange danskere i tysk tjeneste, hvilket vi ikke skal hæve os over, idet det næppe var klart for alle disse mennesker helt hvad nazismen indeholdt. De levede i den sociale realitet, at der var arbejde og muligheder i at handle med tyskerne eller som professionel soldat.
Flammen og Citronen foregår i den sidste del af krigen, hvor den danske modstand bliver organiseret i en hvis grad. Når briterne og russerne er på vej, hvad skal man så gøre? Skal man blot se til, uden risiko for at man selv bliver dræbt eller uskyldige i en hævnaktion? Eller skal man gøre sit til at forræderne og de værste tyskere ikke går frit omkring, måske også efter krigen? Risikoen er at det samfund som vi ville bevare tidligt i krigen gennem samarbejdspolitiken går tabt i en militærundtagelsestilstand.
Flammen og Citronen kunne fortælle en enkel og autentisk historie om den danske modstandsbevægelse, men bliver til en stor fortælling om mange menneskers dilemmaer i de svære år, hvilket bliver en smule uklart og ikke rør ved ens sjæl, som denne del af Danmarks historien ellers "plejer" at gøre. Samtidig er flere ting forstyrrende, tilsyneladende skal F og C også være en actionfilm med en masse skyderi, i stil med I Kina spiser de hunde, hvilket er gjort flot, men står i skrap kontrast til de alvorlige temaer i filmen. Det virker en smule vulgært at stille spørgsmålet om "vi skal slå ihjel?", også bagefter lave en scene hvor folk bliver mejet ned. Det er som om vi lige skulle se en Rambo film mens vi nu var i salen.
Mads Mikkelsen spiller citronen, den ene, passivt aggressive og moralske modstandmand, hvilket han gør godt, men tilgengæld der også lige har en masse familieproblemer midt i krigen. En del af historien vi måske kunne have været foruden. Autentiske historier har det med at indeholde, for temaet, ligegyldige sidehistorier.
Thure Lindhardt er hans makker og fortæller i filmen. Fortællerdelen mener jeg er overdramatiseret og hans viskende stemme er direkte irriterende. Peter Mygind som bagmand og kontakt er helt forkert, idet han i mange år har spillet de bløde roller og er temmelig svær at tage seriøs når man er vant til at se ham i børnefilm, som loverboy i Nicolai og Julie, som en blød bøsse i tv2s hverdagsdrama og herimellem som storsmilende lottosælger i reklameblokken. Det er da klart at han skal kommandere rundt med hårdkogte partisaner. De to tyskere i castet (Christian Berkel og Hanns Zischler) får derimod danskerne til at blegne.
Jeg tror ikke at vi vant til at fortælle så store historier i Danmark og så prøver vi bare at gøre Hollywood efter, hvilket er lidt synd når det foregår i vores egen baghave.

The Dodos



How can something so simple, be so brilliant?

mandag den 24. marts 2008

Analogik


Once and a while I am reminded not to think of music too seriously. After all music can touch all parts of your soul, not only the hurt. These guys certainly aren't very serious in such a way, which dosn't mean that they are shallow. Their strange "worldmusic" which mixes jazz, tango, hiphop, electronic music and tones of other stuff that will almostly make your feet move and put a smile to your face. Sometimes that is all you need, am I right? Thats logical - analogical.
I had to buy their first album last week. "Søens folk" (sailors - literally ppl of the sea) is a great album for both sitting down with your headphones listening to their cute soundbites and for putting on at a dying party that needs to lighten up and take to dancefloor. If you like efterklang or detektivbyrån you definely should check this out. Analogik

onsdag den 19. marts 2008

Night out


Saw "To verdener" (two worlds) in the cinema last night. I would rather see "No country for old men" or "There will be blood", but I had to agree with the mrs. It is based on a true story about a girl who is a Jehovah's witness, who has to choose between her family and a boyfriend which means being shunted from the religious community. In my opinion most films based on true stories tend to have miserable scripts. This is no exception, where there are too many unnecessary story details that clouds the main issues. The film is however saved by the young actors playing the main roles. Its interesting how the girl Sara depicts the mental trouble a person goes through in such an enclosed environment.

tirsdag den 18. marts 2008

Icelandic beauty


I first heard Ólöf Arnalds on the Danish radio programme "De sorte spejdere" who did a broadcast last year from the Iceland airwaves festival last fall. Since then I have not been able to get her beautiful voice out of my head, even though I have no idea what she sings about. From what I first heard from the festival I got the impression that her music was very minimalistic and singer/ songwriter, but on her début album "Við og Við" her guitar and voice is accompanied by cello, harp and other instruments creating this angelic environment with her voice in the centre.
Myspace
Danish review diskant.dk


lørdag den 15. marts 2008

Electropunk among mellow students


What do you get when you take 80's or 90's beats, raw guitar and bass and screaming punk lyrics? You get Revl9n. I saw them last night at Studenterhuset in Aalborg. The lead singer brings a special energy to the stage, with her eccentric stage performance that captivates you, even though her singing isn't that brilliant in my opinion. Electro punk doesn't have a big crowd in Aalborg, a hundred at most were present at their performance - perhaps these swedes are used to a bigger audience? A few, maybe fifteen, took the floor dancing to the beats. The height of the concert was "Waiting for desire" with its easy recognisable synthesiser sounds. Their songs differ a great deal from each other, some being almost entirely electronic and others more punk. I would probably never have gone to this concert if I hadn't gotten the tickets for free, but I didn't regret seeing this very unique duo .
www.myspace.com/revl9n

fredag den 14. marts 2008

Retrograd


Who wants to study, when you can write a blog instead...

Do you ever wonder how your life would turn out if you did something different earlier on? That is very a common thing to do. The Dane Henrik has a quite different approach in Torben Munksgaard's first novel "Retrograd". Instead of reliving his memories in his mind, like we all do, when we think about our earlier love and life, the middle aged Henrik convinces himself that his past life is not only in his memory. He believes that he can simply redo his entire life backwards.
Retrograd is a harsh commentary on the life of Danish bourgeois, tending to their houses, gardens, jobs and marriages.
Retrograd is also about being young - especially in light of adult life that romanticizes and exaggerates the young persons ability to "choose" ones life freely. Another theme is as almost hinted, one of modernity or late-modernity. Meanwhile Munksgaard gives us an open and (maybe to women) chocking insight in the male sexuality and its common perversions. Thought to action is only a short way for Henrik.
About the morals of the story, I think it is safe to say in the words of Kierkegaard, "life is understood backwards, but lived forwards".
Munksgaard gives us a humorous account of middle life crisis that might be hard reading to middle aged Danes, but a common conception among young Danes, who look down upon everyday life in Danish suburbia.

torsdag den 13. marts 2008

Change of plans


The day started nicely with a mail that said I had won two tickets for a concert this Friday.
Wahey! I had no idea what I had won.
Apparently it is a concert with Revl9n and Playboy-Marse, both from Sweden.
Playboy-marse is a DJ and Revl9n is some kind of electro punk apparently, who knew?!
That is all I know, maybe I should find out some more - or maybe not, I could go with fresh ears and eyes to this stuff. I am getting out of the cave and listening to new tunes.
The concert is at studenterhuset at 21oo hours. They still had tickets today and they cost 70 kroner and can be bought at location in the café.

http://www.myspace.com/playboymarse
http://www.myspace.com/revl9n

In other news, I read that the concert with Detektivbyrån, also at Studenterhuset, in April has been cancelled!
NO! ¤%#"/()&/% WHY?! "@#%&!/*

Also I have been getting into a Danish singer / songwriter Annika Aakjær, who has a very beautiful voice and some unique and ironic lyrics. Her album lille filantrop will be out the fifth of may. Mymusic.dk

lørdag den 8. marts 2008

Bellefast


This is my first blog on blogger so bear with me.
From time to time I DISCOVER new music on last.fm. Which means that I begin listening to what other people have been listening to for years... This project however seems to be relatively undiscovered, at least in the places I frequent. Got this of last.fm's recommendations. Actually I think it is the first time I found something really good there. The recommendation system on last.fm has never been a close friend of mine. Most of the time it seems to be weird stuff from the other users, while the automatic recommendations gives boring stuff I already heard about.
Bellefast is a danish one-man project by Mads Bjørn, who was in the band LIMF. I get the impression that there so far isn't any great plan to sell thousands of records or get airplay on national radio. It has been almost a year since the release of the EP "17:11", which holds a number of great songs, some of which remind me of Radiohead's In Rainbows album, maybe Radiohead got some ideas from this guy?... Try listening to "the state i'm in". It seems hard to believe that this stuff was made in this guy's own living room, and that he plays all the instruments himself. I like the blend of acoustic guitar and keyboard in a slow rhythm, which suits my mellow mood, ex. in "It Looks You Need a 5 minute break". Another thing that attracts me is the sound of his voice that has a bit Bowie about it.
Hopefully more will come from his hand soon.
Download the EP 17:11 and more here
Bellefast on myspace
It might be a while till my next blog, unless I find some new music. Next blog will be on a book I am reading, Retrograd by Torben Munksgaard. Might be in danish haven't decided yet. Until we meet again.