Bænken - a Danish film

On Wednesday I had a field study for my Danish class. It wasn't a traditional field study where you go to a museum or a castle. We met in a classroom for a day of "experimental learning". We began by discussing the welfare state of Denmark, what we thought were the pros and cons and the major elements. Then we got into groups and went out into the city for about a half hour to take pictures representing the good and bad parts of the Welfare State. This was somewhat difficult because what we discussed were more abstract ideas but we managed. In my group we decided that a good thing about the welfare state is the equality it brings to the people. To represent this we took a picture of a street near DIS on which the roof lines of the buildings are all at basically the same height, representing the equality. We discussed that a bad result of the welfare state is that some people do not have the drive to reach their full potential because they can settle into an average, comfortable life very easily. To represent this we took a picture of two cars. They were standard, average, nothing flashy. There really aren't many nice cars here. (We realize that some of that has to do with the fact that everyone bikes here because of the environment and the fact that there is not parking but the photograph was meant to be more symbolic than anything else).

As a reward for doing this, Charlotte,  our teacher, arranged for us to get coffee or hot chocolate (paid for by DIS) as long as we ordered in Danish.

"Jeg vil gerne have en kop chokolade?"

(by the way "chokolade" is pronounced more like chocolelle in case you thought that finally there was an easy word to say in danish)

Charlotte also bought us giant cinnamon rolls from St. Peter's Bakery!

Content with our snacks we watched "Bænken" or "The Bench" a Danish film about the lower class of Danish people and the welfare system. It was an excellent movie and very moving but it was also very stressful to watch. The main character was an alcoholic. His estranged daughter was in an abusive relationship. The daughter moved in with a man who was writing his thesis on Kirkegard, a famous danish philosopher, who ends up going crazy. The list goes on. The message of the movie was that even though Denmark is a welfare state and many people are helped by it and the general population is more equal than in other countries, there are still people who fall through the cracks, there are still alcoholics, and there is still poverty. It was very interesting and it is a popular Danish film because every Dane I have mentioned it to so far has seen it and loved it.

The director also made a film about the middle class and the upper class of Danish society but I have not seen either of those yet.