Seaside Hotel – Badehotellet: Danish TV Period Piece

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This 10 season WWII Danish period piece ran from 2013-2024 and is quite addicting to watch. You will find it on PBS. I found it to be Denmark’s description of WWII, similar to A French Village, in that they are capturing a small community of people during this period of crisis. The differences are vast, in that A French Village shows more violence and causes more stress to the viewer. In fact, at the end of A French Village, I felt emotionally exhausted. But, the French period piece is doing a lot of “Show Don’t Tell,” vs. the Danish piece is “Telling but not Showing.” Which is fine and a unique way of narrating a horrible time in history. With Seaside Hotel, we are seeing amazing actors, never out of character, who are capable of telling the story of WWII and how it impacted them. These are middle to well to do characters who choose to consistently take room and board at this seaside hotel, during the summer season. It is strangely comforting, as if your grandparents or great grandparents are talking to you from beyond the grave.

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In the Land of Saints and Sinners – and a Black Guy?

The secondary title of this Irish film set in 1974 which is meant to be about Irish history should be “There is an African in the Pub.” He has absolutely NO relevance whatsoever to this film, which I am calling a pseudo historical fiction. Yet, the filmmakers had to stick him in and had to have Liam Neeson’s character Finbar, babysit him throughout, because it is important to them to bypass the real reason we are watching this film – to focus on a part of Irish history.

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