RATING
Director: Mette Heeno
Country: Denmark
Creator: Mette Heeno
Actors: Morten Hee Andersen, Maria Hessing, Lars Ranthe
Written by Tom Augustine.
Based on true events, the new Danish series exclusively premiering in New Zealand on Rialto Channel captures the forging of a modern Denmark through an unlikely collaboration that led to the innovation of electric hair curlers. Stylish, kindhearted and optimistic, it is a breath of fresh air to carry through the maudlin winter months.
The Sixties as an era for period storytelling is a tricky one — the pivotal decade for any number of political and social movements, it was also a staggering time for the evolution of practically every form of art, from music to literature to cinema and beyond. Capturing the era is a more difficult task than some might suspect — the films that zero in on a specific site of cultural boom (Inside Llewyn Davis, Taking Woodstock) or major historical moment (Jackie, Selma) inevitably must sacrifice some element of historical completism on a grand scale in order to tell their story properly. Many Sixties-set period dramas carry a classiness and stylishness to them that recalls the boom of Pop Art and rock’n’roll — Catch Me If You Can, The Queen’s Gambit, and especially Mad Men, perhaps the defining period text of the era to be found anywhere. In evoking this specific aesthetic, there is an intriguing tension at play — the style, now nostalgic and throwback, was positively cutting edge at the time, a youthful look that reflected a new generation eager to shrug off the restrictive burdens of yesteryear. Social climbing, class and the looming potentialities of capitalism are everywhere to be found in these stories, with the heroes of these films and series frequently running as fast as they can to distance themselves from the lives of the working class that they came from, as with Catch Me If You Can’s Frank Abagnale Jr, or Mad Men’s Don Draper.
What I often long for is more time spent with the lower classes in these stories, even as they provide a compelling framework for our striving (anti)heroes in the struggle for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is odd that so many stories invoke class but so few remain with the working class and tell their perspective. This is a generalisation, but a working class tale carries with it a certain connotation that drains said story of the sexiness and style that the Sixties as a cultural cache had in droves. The Sixties saw the emergence of Kitchen Sink Realism, a truly vital movement that birthed, among others, Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, but which nevertheless carried a dourness that is ably suggested by the title. Even Loach’s own flirtation with the Swingin’ Sixties from a working class perspective, the remarkable Poor Cow, can’t quite escape the doldrums. The first two episodes of Carmen Curlers, the breakthrough Danish series premiering exclusively on Rialto Channel this month, finds something of a happy medium between the two, possessed of a stylish, zippy optimism as well as a clear-eyed understanding of the struggles of working class Danes in the era. The series has been a massive hit in its home-country, and it’s not hard to see why — recreating the era with exacting detail, it’s a story whose upbeatness is hard-won, and whose sentiment is never cheap.
Carmen Curlers tells the (mostly) true story of the invention of electric hair curlers, which revolutionised women’s fashion by allowing the process to take minutes, whereas before such an application took hours or even days. Morten Hee Andersen plays Axel Byvang (drawing on real life inspiration Dane Arne Byborg), a young entrepreneur desperate for a breakthrough, who stumbles on an offer to buy the patent for the curlers in a newspaper ad. Axel has no real interest in fashion, but picks up on the product’s potential as a gravitational object in women’s fashion and becomes obsessed with pioneering the technology. As he chases his dream, he decides to recruit women from farms in the area, including Berthe Windfeld (Maria Rossing), a weary but reasonably-content farmer’s wife who doesn’t dare dream of getting along better than she already does. When her husband Jorgen (Lars Ranthe) is discovered to have leukaemia, and is in dire need of an operation, she is inspired to take on the opportunity, joining numerous other women getting their first taste of liberation as the Sixties plays out around them.
The series, from writer and producer Mette Heeno, is a story of strivers, which makes for naturally compelling television. I was surprised just how quickly I was captured by the insistence and perseverance of our two deeply-mismatched heroes, as both wrestle for something greater at enormous risk to their own stability and security. Andersen and Rossing are simply fantastic — their wry, flinty chemistry is only teased in the early stages of the series, with their eventual union really clicking toward the end of the second episode watched for this review. What is there, though, is deeply promising — it is clear these two, who have very little in common, nevertheless offer the key to the other’s salvation. Though both characters are underdogs in a cruelly capitalist world, Carmen Curlers does not douse us in misery in its portrait of the working class. The farm Berthe lives on is a place of warmth and community, with its fair share of problems, but a reliable and unshakeable sense of family. It bears specific comforts, which illuminate for us why Berthe has been able to let the years slip by her. Achieving financial stability is a by-product for both Axel and Berthe — what they actually seek is a kind of self-actualisation, which is a far more intriguing proposition. Along the way, Heeno’s show maintains a genuine bubbliness that’s hard to dismiss — there are musical numbers that tilt the show ever-so-slightly toward magical realism, alongside a jazzy score, splitscreens and other markers of the era. The series’ lovely opening credits share DNA with Mad Men’s iconic opening, which is good company to keep. It’s the kind of show that inspires early investment. The show’s deep popularity in its home country suggests the likelihood of a return on investment is high.
Carmen Curlers – Exclusive Series Premieres Tuesdays, 8.30pm, from 21 July on Sky’s Rialto Channel.