1864

Production

1864 was produced by Miso Film for DR. It was a co-production with Film Fyn, TV2 (Norway), TV4 (Sweden), SF Studios, ARTE, ZDF Enterprises and Sirena Film (Czech Republic). DR had recently produced the highly successful series The Killing, Borgen and The Bridge, and several of the stars of those series, such as Lars Mikkelsen, Sidse Babett Knudsen and Søren Malling, were among the cast. 1864 was filmed on location at Dybbøl, scene of the climactic battle of the war, in the Svanninge Hills on Funen, and at Hagenskov, Egebjerggård and Hvidkilde Manors, also on Funen. The battle scenes were filmed in the Czech Republic over a period of seven weeks. Tom Buk-Swienty, on whose books the series was based, was a historical consultant on the series. It was the most expensive television series ever made in Denmark, with a projected cost of 173 million kroner (about $25 million).

The director, Ole Bornedal, described it as "a classic story about power and the abuse of power...of people getting separated." The BBC's John Wilson said it had "the sense of the epic in scale" but with "a great undertone of tragedy."

The background to the opening credits is the painting Fra forposterne 1864 (From the outposts, 1864) by Vilhelm Rosenstand.

Plot summary

1850s

In 1851, the people of a Danish village await the return of the victorious soldiers from the First Schleswig War. Among the soldiers is farmer Thøger Jensen, who has incurred a severe leg wound and returns to his wife Karen and sons 12-year-old Laust and 11-year-old Peter. Also returning is Didrich, son of the local landowner, the Baron, who served as a captain. Didrich has been severely damaged psychologically by the war and has also been tainted by cowardice; his father reveals that he bribed his fellow officers not to report him to the military authorities. Didrich's mother died giving birth to him, and his father (Waage Sandø) has never forgiven him; while kind to his tenants, he treats his son with scorn.

Overjoyed to have their father home, Laust and Peter also befriend Inge Juel, the spirited daughter of the Baron's new estate manager. Didrich, too, who is increasingly becoming a dissolute alcoholic, has feelings for Inge, although she is only a child. At the harvest festival celebrations he propositions her, but she slaps his face and runs away. Later, Thøger, whose wound has never really healed, dies suddenly while working in the fields. Laust goes to work for the Baron as a stable boy.

In Copenhagen, the leader of the National Liberal Party, D. G. Monrad, meets famous actress Johanne Luise Heiberg, who begins to encourage him in his nationalist ideas.

1860s

In the 1860s, Monrad is now Council President (prime minister), and has become a convinced nationalist. He actively tries to provoke a war with Prussia over the Schleswig-Holstein Question, still encouraged by Mrs Heiberg. Monrad tries to persuade the new king, Christian IX, that declaring war would show the people that Christian, who was born in Schleswig and grew up speaking German, is a true Dane. In Berlin, King Wilhelm, his minister-president, Otto von Bismarck, and his chief of the general staff, General Helmuth von Moltke, greet Denmark's sabre-rattling with disbelief but also relief as such a war would fit perfectly into Bismarck's plan of placing Prussia as the dominant power in the German Confederation.

In the village, Laust and Peter have grown into young men, now both in love with Inge. A group of gypsies led by Ignazio arrives in the village and ask for work. Although Inge's father says they need help with the harvest, Didrich orders them to leave. Later, he and his dissolute friends catch Ignazio's son, Djargo, poaching pheasant on the Baron's land and severely flog him. He is found by Laust, Peter and Inge, who take him to the Baron. The Baron chastises his son and gives the gypsies work in the harvest. He also persuades Laust and Peter and their friend Einar to join the army.

The brothers complete their basic training and return to the village on leave, arriving at the harvest festival celebrations. They leave with Inge and both end up kissing her. However, after they leave her, Laust, on the pretext of going to search for his lost knife, returns to her without Peter's knowledge and they make love. Later, Didrich, drunk as usual and unable to find Inge, rapes Ignazio's beautiful, mute daughter Sofia, who keeps the attack to herself.

The brothers return to the army, where they and Einar are assigned to a company of the 8th Brigade. There they befriend Alfred, a naive young man from Skagen, Erasmus, a cheerful bearded giant who is a miller in civilian life, and Johan Larsen, a middle-aged veteran who has a reputation for being psychic and is soon promoted to corporal. They also form good relations with the company's second-in-command, the young Second Lieutenant Wilhelm Dinesen, and with their senior NCO, Sergeant Jespersen.

Monrad's plans are finally realised when he announces that Denmark has fully annexed Schleswig and Prussia decides to declare war. The 8th Brigade is sent south to occupy the Danevirke, a line of fortifications which has always been regarded as the country's southern border and which is regarded in Danish mythology as impregnable. However, when they arrive they find the Danevirke dilapidated, with no barracks accommodation. They are also assigned a new company commander to replace the former ancient and senile officer, who has died en route; it is Didrich, who has been recalled to the colours.

2014

A frame story takes place in the modern day. Troubled teenage tearaway Claudia and her drug dealer boyfriend Zlatko are taken on a school trip to the Dybbøl battlefield, where they are bored and smoke marijuana. Soon afterwards Claudia, whose brother was killed while serving in the army overseas (probably in Afghanistan) and whose parents have retreated into depression, leaves school and is found a temporary job as carer for Baron Severin. In his nineties, nearly blind, reliant on a wheelchair and probably with dementia, Severin lives alone in his mansion, which it is soon clear is the same mansion formerly owned by Didrich. While looking for things to steal to finance her boyfriend's drug dealing, Claudia finds a handwritten journal, which turns out to be Inge's memoirs, written just before her death in 1939. Inge was Severin's grandmother and he asks Claudia to read it to him. She begins reluctantly, but soon warms to the story and to the old man, and it is this story, read by both Claudia and Inge, that forms the voiceover at various points in the series.

Later Claudia discovers that through her mother she is Sofia's great-great-great-great-granddaughter and that she and Severin are therefore distant cousins (presumably her great-great-great-grandfather was little Peter, who was Didrich's son, as was Severin's father). She tries to sell the jewellery she has stolen from Severin, but the jeweller becomes suspicious and calls the police and she flees back to the mansion. Tearfully she admits to Severin what she has done, but he says he knows and forgives her. As she reads the end of the story to him, she realises that he was with Inge at the end and wrote the whole thing down for her. Excitedly she asks him about it, but then realises that the old man has died as she was reading.

Cast

Main cast members from the series:

Broadcast

1864 was first broadcast on DR1 on 12 October 2014. It was broadcast in a four-week run on BBC Four in the United Kingdom, starting on 16 May 2015 with 2 episodes shown each week. The series premiered on Swedish commercial broadcaster TV4 and on the Franco-German network Arte in June 2015. It was shown on Irish public service broadcaster RTÉ2 in July 2015, and in Australia on SBS, commencing on 7 June 2016.

Reception

The series divided reviewers in Denmark; some were enthusiastic, praising the lavish cinematography, while others considered the cost should have been used for other programming, especially more Scandinavian noir. Some Danish critics and historians felt that the series contained historical inaccuracies, particularly in its assertion that excessive nationalism drove Denmark into a war that was bound to end in defeat. The 1864 war had a profound effect on Denmark, setting the country's course for its modern development. As a result, Tom Buk-Swienty, the series' historical consultant, believed that that sort of debate was inevitable. On the other hand, producer Peter Bose commented that "we were expecting debates but were rather surprised by the continuous bashing".

It received a positive reception from reviewers in the United Kingdom, however. Andrew Collins of The Guardian said that "1864 really is in television's top rank", and that "the most expensive TV series in Danish history puts every krone up there on the screen." Gerard O'Donovan of the Telegraph said that DR had "taken a key moment in their nation's history and made it as compelling as any noir drama." Ellen E. Jones of the Independent said that "the scale of this series is too ambitious to grasp in a single episode, but the more you watch, the deeper you'll be sucked in."