The Danish Woman

The Imperialist Next Door

In the screenwriting manuals that dominate Hollywood, there is a golden rule known as "Save the Cat." It dictates that a protagonist, no matter how flawed, must perform a small act of kindness early on to curry favor with the audience. Benedikt Erlingsson, the Icelandic auteur behind *Woman at War*, knows this rule well. In *The Danish Woman*, he does not just break it; he strangles it. When Ditte Jensen (Trine Dyrholm), a retired Danish secret service operative, encounters a stray feline defecating in her new Reykjavik garden, she does not pet it. She eliminates the threat with the cold efficiency of a state executioner. This moment, shocking and darkly hilarious, serves as the thesis statement for a series that disguises a biting geopolitical allegory as a neighborhood comedy.

Erlingsson has always been fascinated by the solitary crusader—the individual who decides their moral compass supersedes the law. But whereas his previous heroines fought for environmental salvation, Ditte fights for a terrifyingly specific kind of order. Dyrholm, an actress of boundless range, plays Ditte not as a villain, but as the ultimate pragmatist. She moves into an Icelandic apartment block seeking anonymity, yet she cannot suppress the reflex to "fix" things. When a neighbor is bullied or a teenager acts out, Ditte intervenes with surveillance tech and tactical violence. She is Rambo in a cardigan, Pippi Longstocking with a license to kill.



Visually, Erlingsson rejects the gray, moody palette of "Nordic Noir." Instead, he favors a static, tableau-like framing that highlights the absurdity of the human condition against the stark Icelandic landscape. The camera often observes Ditte from a distance, emphasizing her isolation even as she forces herself into the lives of others. The series breaks its own reality with surreal musical interludes—dream sequences where Ditte dances on mountaintops, shedding her rigid armor to reveal a soul vibrating with repressed energy. These moments are not merely stylistic flourishes; they are essential glimpses into the "sexual and emotional being" trapped beneath decades of state-sanctioned discipline.

But the genius of *The Danish Woman* lies in its discomfort. We laugh when Ditte humiliates a rude neighbor because it fulfills a primal fantasy of justice. Yet, Erlingsson slowly reveals the rot at the core of her altruism. Ditte is a walking metaphor for Western interventionism. She represents the old colonial powers (specifically Denmark, Iceland's former ruler) who believe they know what is best for the "uncivilized" locals. She insists on speaking Danish to Icelanders, viewing their independence as a quaint phase. She is the helpful empire, the well-meaning superpower that invades a country to "save" it, leaving collateral damage in its wake.



The tension culminates not in gunfights, but in the awkward silences of the stairwell. The apartment complex becomes a battlefield where the line between being a "good neighbor" and a totalitarian overseer blurs. By the time the credits roll, the laughter sticks in the throat. We realize we have been cheering for a tyrant simply because she made the trains run on time.

*The Danish Woman* is a masterclass in tonal tightrope walking. It suggests that the impulse to control—whether it’s a garden, a teenager, or a sovereign nation—is a violence all its own. Erlingsson has crafted a series that is ostensibly about a retiree finding her place, but is truly about the terrifying hubris of those who believe the end always justifies the means.