cinema roundup

I have been exposed to a great number of movie trailers of late, viewed whilst surrounded by Danes munching licorice and gummy candies named after things you would never willingly put in your mouth, never mind swallow. Here are a few observations.


On Nordisk film and the white bear:

Nordisk film, the Danish cinematic concern, uses a polar bear perched on a Mercator globe as its logo. I am fascinated by this reminder that around the time that film was becoming a popular entertainment, spectacle in Denmark must still have consisted in large degree of the viewing of items from the exotic reaches of the colonies: Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, parts of Africa.

In fact the white bear has been the object of Danish viewing pleasure for much longer than that, even, if we may judge by the 13th-century tale of Auðun vestfirzka. Probably fictional but none the less instructive, the Icelander Auðun travels from his native Eastfjords to Greenland and acquires a white bear cub which he then transports, with many a mishap, to the King of Denmark. I do not do the tale justice. It is a brilliant little narrative and well worth the hassle of learning Icelandic to read it in the original. But my point is the bear, the object of visual fascination then and later. Now, it seems, it is the very symbol of spectacle, flashed up on screens across Copenhagen before the main feature, the signal that something worth seeing is about to appear.


On "Alexander":

I wonder whether I should be heartened or disturbed that I am distracted less by the welter of Irish and Scottish accents among the Macedonians than by Alexander's horse Bucephalos being played by a Frisian. A noble beast looking much out of place.



On "National Treasure":

The whole idea that there is a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence is irritating. A moment's thought should be enough for anyone to realize that the treasure map is on the front.