1864

In 1864, Denmark launched what seems in retrospect an inexplicable war of national expansion. It ended in ignominious defeat at the hands of Bismark's Prussian army. '1864' attempts to tell the story of this war, and is both a personal tale centred on a number of its protagonists, and perhaps also, a story of the eventual birth of the Denmark we know today, the peaceful modern social democracy that eventually superseded the nationalist pretensions of the 19th century. There's been a lot of Danish drama released internationally in recent years, but it's a small country, and fans of other Danish series will recognise a huge proportion of the cast in this one. But sadly, '1864' does not live up to the standards of 'The Killing' or 'Borgen'. It's slow, ponderous, repetitive, obvious and the attempt to wrap up the 19th century story in a contemporary wrapping further reduces the immediacy of the drama. The budget for battle scenes, meanwhile, seems to have been spent entirely in episode 7, which is impressive in itself, but the rest of the episodes speak of war without actually showing it very much. And we never really understand just how the Danish politicians thought that the war could actually be won. Outside of Denmark, the war of 1864 is a little known quirk of European history; I'd be interested to know more, but in spite of its 8 hour duration, I finished this drama still frustratingly uninformed.

The Second Schleswig War is an interesting footnote in 19th century history, and it's good they made a series around it to highlight how it was experienced by different people. And for the most part it is done well; the emotionally passionate but not really all there in the head Danish Prime Minister and his friend the opera actress are both excellently portrayed. The scheming Bismarck, the internal problems facing the Prussian and Danish armies and so on are all well done. Now on a personal level I would've liked the show to be just that; the decision making of the people involved, their ideals, sympathies, mistakes and tragedies. That is what makes for good historical drama. However, such scenes are quite rare.

The problem with 1864 is that it doesn't focus too much on that, and rather wastes its time with a love-triangle between 2 brothers and their girlfriend. And on top of that an unneeded segway into some unlikeable girl and a senile grandpa in modern times reflecting on what happened in 1864. And that's a shame because there is a lot of rich history under the surface.

Let me start off by saying that I think 1864 is a beautifully filmed series with several solid performances and a lot of work put into creating the scenery, props and costuming. That being said, it's saddled with a pretty lukewarm script. There were lots of places Bornedal could have gone with this piece of history, and at times one is confused as to why he made some of the choices he did. One of the most common complaints is the present-day connection, which does feel unnecessary at times, but what's far worse are the absolutely out-of-the-blue supernatural elements which pop up toward the middle of the series and add nothing to the story but a thoroughly shattered suspense of disbelief. Beyond that bit, I found the series to be reasonably historical. Not a documentary, mind you, but as faithful as could be reasonably expected. The other problem with the series is that it occasionally lays on the melodrama too thick, sometimes almost comically so.

TL;DR- Despite the the writing problems, I found myself captivated by this shiny, sometimes stupid period drama. (also, ep. 7 contains one of the most epic battle sequences I've seen in a long time, so there's that.)

**If you're reading this in another country, you ought to know that many ratings and reviews of this series are highly politically charged. Some liberals hate it outright because it received so much public funding, and the Danish Peoples Party hates it for its (justifiably) negative depiction of extreme nationalism and its consequences.

An epic drama about one of the most crucial events shaping modern Denmark (or rather cutting away 1/3 of the nation, Schleswig-Holstein, mainly German speaking). Fantastic sound, picture (remarkable use of different weather conditions) and epic, "beautyfull" (hmmm....can one say that?) very realistic battle scenes, some of the best made in European movies for a long time i believe. Thats the 5 of the 6 stars. Storyline and acting is confusing though. The overplay and "over"-telling the message "war is bad, all generals and politicians are nationalists / more or less cold at heart or even bordering to crazy, and all the soldiers are victims"..... This simply ruins the series. Nationalism and war is much more complex than that and Bornedal fails to tell this story....even though he had a whole candy box of opportunities. He could have chosen a Danish minority family in German Holstein or a German minority family in Danish majority area Schleswig. Or why not the Swedish connection (the "nationalist awakening" of being Scandinavian brothers happened in this century after Sweden, Norway and Denmark had fought each other for over 1000 years), so this brotherhood that now stands for the Scandinavian soul today almost made the Swedish king deploy 15000 troops to Denmark to fight Prussia in this war. Or why not a Polish family living in exile in Denmark. Poland (a Danish Neighbor)disappeared from the map (about 120 years) in 1795 after roughly 1000 years of existence, divided by the big powers of Europe. Denmark was also afraid of simply to disappear, one reason for this war in 1864. These stories could very well describe the complexity of nationalism: identity, fear, hope, pride, community, cultural tradition and identity, language etc. Nationalism is not only Adolf H. and other idiots. Bornedal choice as side stories then: A Roma (Gypsy) family (????) and a healing Harry Potter that can do Hypnosis and see into the future.....WHAT THE F....happened.....Some errors in the historical facts is OK (Colonel Max Müller was not at all at Dybbøl and so on)...and the main characters are fine.....but failing to grab some of the most obvious good side stories and replace them with irrelevant and clairvoyant crap is nothing more but a big time failure from Bornedal....sadly....loosing the obvious opportunity to depict the complexity and horror of war and national identity, instead making it halfway a 70-hippie "all politicians are bad" story. This is a big big shame..... therefore only max. 6 stars (could have been 10 with that fantastic and historically spot-on scenery). We lost the war and now also the series about it.....Lets hope the movie version will cut out the "noice" of this series.......and bring the epic beautiful drama it could be.....

It is fascinating, and maybe instructive, to see how non- Scandinavian/Danish reviewers tend to give this series several stars more those for whom the series was made.

For a non-Dane who had never heard about this... well, let's be honest, footnote in European history, I found it very brilliant. Not for me concerns about historical accuracy or whether this general was actually where he was shown to be. Like I care, to be honest. What I got was a multi-pronged love story, some political intrigue, villains who were as black as they dressed, and - as others have said - battle scenes are quite simply some of the best I have ever seen. Breathtaking, terrifying, stunning.

Yet again Denmark is made to look ravishing by the Danish production team. I mean, wow, is this an amazing looking country or what? My list of "places to visit in Denmark" grew with every episode.

However it was at times confusing and on several occasions I was running for a map - and come to that the Wikipedia pages about the war - just to try to work on what the heck was going on. And it has to be said that the villains really were over the top villains (though maybe the Prime Minister really was this barking?). And at times I mistook Danes for Germans, because both were subtitled identically (and Danish and German sound quite alike). And it was not quite sure that the framing with the modern day pair really worked - it was just too predictable and unoriginal and really no needed. So this was not perfect, but its was still very good.

And it was great to see most of the cast of "Borgen" turn up again, slightly more odd to see at least one of the main locations turn up too - but I guess they only have so many places they can use.

Overall - another hit from Danish TV. How do they do it?