Borgen: 100 Days

“I’m having scheduled sex with the Prime Minister?”

I’ve compared Borgen to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy before; this time I really mean it. We have an episode about security and murky cover-ups of CIA renditions, with all the suspense, drama, and threat of off-the-record police harassment of journalists that implies. But this is just a backdrop: the episode is really about colonialism, in layers. What Greenland is to Denmark, Denmark is to the USA. Neither nation is truly independent, and both feel a little emasculated. Yet both finish the episode by asserting a little independence and a little dignity. I’m reminded of the excellent Michael Frayn play Copenhagen, in which Niels Bohr speaks of the proud independence of a small country.

Even the opening quote is from a Greenlander. It’s fascinating to see a light being shone into a place of which I, being British, am hardly aware. But the relationship between coloniser and colonised, however postmodern, is familiar to anyone in the awkward situation of being a citizen of a former colonial power which has done bad things. There’s glorious wit in the ritualised relationship between Birgitte as Danish Prime Minister and the Greenland premier, Jens Enok, where the Permanent Secretary (Denmark has its Sir Humphreys too!) casually remarks that he is, symbolically, “used to” waiting outside.

What’s wonderful is that Enok immediately undercuts the premise of his meeting with Birgitte by deconstructing the entire situation. He knows that, although he is under the control of Denmark, the use of the base at Thule to transport illegally rendited prisoners is at the behest of America. There’s a three-way pecking order. I’m reminded of a certain old sketch about class: the Americans are John Cleese, Birgitte is Ronnie Barker and Enok is Ronnie Corbett. And I sure you that wasn’t a sentence I was expecting to write at the beginning of this paragraph.

Journalism gets looked at here, too as we see the pressures put upon Katrine to drop her story. There’s a great deal of ambiguity; her boss is alternately brave and cowardly when it comes to running this inflammatory material. She’s put under a great deal of threat by “special branch” harassment and mysterious burglaries, and one interview is suspiciously incompetent and Peter O’Hanra-Hanrahanlike. Nevertheless, dark conspiracy theory-friendly behaviour by the state only goes so far in Denmark, and threats to arrest and charge much of the newsroom never come to much.

The ending, suicide aside, is uplifting, as Birgitte shows that she genuinely cares about Greenland and makes a token gesture of defiance to US power. But there’s a clearly intended parallel between the people of Greenland and Katrine’s mole- both are prone to suicide, excessive drinking and sexual misconduct and it’s implied (perhaps too simplistically) that all this is a symptom of national humiliation.

This was a very different episode. Borgen continues to expand the things it can do. Birgitte seems to pass her ethical test this time, but the cracks in her family relationships are becoming more and more visible…