Something smells of cynicism in the last season of Borgen. The Danish political drama was successful a decade ago with its portrayal of the daily miseries of rulers and the media, found even in the most exemplary of democracies. In his comeback, now on Netflix (Borgen: Kingdom, power and glory), protagonist Birgitte Nyborg (well played by Sidse Babett Knudsen) baffles us. The now Foreign Minister gives in to her principles and swerves as the wind blows. She has changed Borgen? Or has the policy changed?
The main plot of the new installment is convincing: the discovery of oil in Greenland encourages independence in that country, contradicts Copenhagen’s climate policy and creates tensions with the US, Russia and China. Too bad it’s hard to believe some scenes: nobody repeats the same speech in public and in a closed-door negotiation. It is jarring, for example, that the minister alone decides on a world crisis, without counting on the prime minister or her party; or that, faced with a piece of news that shakes the government, the heads of a news program dedicate themselves to searching for archive images. It’s not serious: the series works because it focuses on the humanity of those who make decisions and are under pressure from voters, tweeters, allies, lobby, ambassadors. From there comes a way of doing liquid, volatile, short-term politics.
Since 2013, when it stopped BorgenEverything has happened: Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro, Orbán, the rise of social networks, the refugee crisis, the pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine… Even, now, the threat of nuclear war. And we have experienced the rise of the extreme right in the Nordic countries and in many others. The extremists stood out in Denmark and, although they are already less, their ideas contaminated the other parties: they also appeared in Norway and Finland, and in Sweden today they caress power. What we believed to be a paradise of well-being and tolerance is not going to be exemplary forever. We are not talking about Italy. Yet.
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