Beyond ‘us and them’? National and global themes in Danish Afghanistan films

Abstract

This article analyses the Afghan war in Danish documentaries, fictional films, and television. The Afghan war is a landmark in Danish media and public debate. The first war with Danish forces in direct combat on foreign ground raised a new agenda on national and global dimensions of war. Susanne Bier’s Brothers (2004) was the first film to address this theme, followed by Christoffer Guldbrandsen’s political documentary The Secret War (2006). Janus Metz’s documentary film Armadillo (2010) and Tobias Lindholm’s fictional film The War (2015) include the perspective of the soldier, the home front, and the civilians. Two other documentaries, Eva Mulvad’s Enemies of Happiness (2006) and Nagieb Khaja’s My Afghanistan. Life in the Forbidden Zone (2012), go deep into everyday life in Afghanistan. Together these films ask how we can deal with war and realities in a global world and how films can make us better understand global others.

KEYWORDS:

• the Danish war film
• political documentary
• war documentary
• Afghanistan
• cosmopolitan ‘Others’

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ib Bondebjerg

Professor Ib Bondebjerg, Department of Communication, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He has published widely on documentary, European film and media culture and globalisation.