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.
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.