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With ever-changing original content, charismatic actors and a dynamism that attracts giants of online video, the Danish series continues to seduce and imposes itself on screens around the world.
Last darling, "In the name of the father", aired on the French-German channel Arte from Thursday, the new series of Adam Price, screenwriter of the acclaimed "Borgen", which followed the political and personal tribulations of an ambitious prime minister.
A clever mix of exoticism and realism explains the appetite of the globalized audience for these initially local and non-English series, says Pia Jensen, professor of information sciences at the University of Aarhus and series specialist.
For a long time confined to the police genre, the Danish series exploded internationally with "The Killing", where we follow the investigations of a police detective from Copenhagen.
She has since passed this vignette "Nordic Noir", itself standardized and whose aesthetic is found beyond the Scandinavian borders in series like "Shetland" or "Broadchurch", produced in Britain, says Ms. Jensen.
For a foreign audience, Denmark as it is shown on television is "an exotic society to be aspired to because of the welfare state and strong female characters". "As if Denmark was the paradise of parity," she amuses herself.
Paradoxically, in this almost ideal world, evolve "normal" characters to which the public says to identify easily, underlines the researcher.
– The ways of the Lord –
Distributed in nearly 80 countries, "In the Name of the Father" explores the meanders of the daily life of a Danish pastoral family, dominated by the figure of a willing and tempestuous father in the grip of many demons, Johannes Krogh.
Lars Mikkelsen, who plays this pastor in his fifties and who was already playing in The Killing, has just been awarded an International Emmy Award.
Acclaimed also for his performance as Russian President in "House of Cards", he has, with this role "created a new stallion for the interpretation of a main character in a TV series", assures the creator of the program, Adam Price, inescapable figure of cultural creation in Denmark.
"Johannes is the tenth generation of pastors: it is a huge burden that torments him and he in turn torment his son," he summarizes.
The eldest, Christian, lost, is breaking the ban while the second, August, pastor as dad and married, conscientiously follows the family path until he becomes chaplain for the troops stationed in Afghanistan.
"In the Bible, there are many stories of fathers, sons and brothers, it was a fertile ground for talking about male relationships, the gene of competition between men of the same family", analysis M. Price.
– Dissection –
One finds in "In the name of the father" a part of the DNA of "Borgen": the effective politician Birgitte Nyborg shares with the cacique Johannes Krogh a passion for his work.
"But Johannes reacts differently because his ambition is not related to the political world, it concerns a more supernatural power," notes Adam Price.
Reflection on faith and religion intertwines a conscientious dissection of the family matrix.
"Religion is sometimes something imposed, in the same way that authority can be imposed on our children in a family," says the screenwriter, who is currently working on "Ragnarok" for Netflix, a six-part series in which a god of Norse mythology is reincarnated as a teenager of the modern world.
"In the name of the father" was thought of as a story in two acts, the second season is currently broadcast on the DR public television, which produced it, and brings together more than 500,000 viewers.
This country of 5.8 million people is proud of its reputation as a small and big screen innovator.
"Danish producers mostly think of a Danish audience for which they have to be relevant and that is why DR continues to experiment, some series will travel – and some will not -" says Jensen.
© 2018 AFP
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