Political Film Review #411

A ROYAL AFFAIR REVEALS HOW DENMARK BECAME A MODERN STATE

When the film begins, a narrator speaks of her selection as the queen for King Christian VII (played by Mikkel Boe Følsgaard) of Denmark-Norway, but she is writing to tell the whole truth to unidentified persons. Princess Caroline Matilda (played by Alicia Vikander), age 15, leaves England to arrive in Denmark in 1766, where she meets the 17-year-old king, whom she thought would be suitable because of his reputed interest in theater and poetry. But the king acts very strangely indeed; were he to act that way nowadays, he would be taken for someone very gay. (The film does not mention that he was debauched by pages in his early teens, not educated sufficiently to handle affairs of state, and possibly had schizophrenia.) When she plays a composition on the clavichord, he is bored and tells her so. But she was advised in England to invite him to her bedchamber on the first night to assure a smooth marriage, and their child is born in due course. Nevertheless, the two are estranged because he is not really turned on by her, and he prefers to return to debauchery. The government is run by a council of nobles, led by Ove Høegh-Guldberg (played by David Dencik). The Queen Dowager (played by Trine Dyrholm) wants her own second-born to become king and schemes accordingly. One day Count Rantzau (played by Thomas W. Gabrielsson) meets a small-town physician, presumably by happenstance. Perpetually broke from gambling, he asks Dr. Johann Friedrich Struensee (played by Mads Mikkelsen) to apply for the position of the king’s personal physician so that through his influence he can get back in the good graces of the court. An atheist, Struensee has a library of literature and Enlightenment philosophy and has even written and published Enlightenment treatises. Christian is not at first interested in a personal physician, but when he interviews Struensee, the latter quotes Shakespeare, whence the two nearly have a game of dozens, quoting the bard. By 1770, Struensee cleverly directs Christian’s thoughts into challenging the old order while carrying on clandestine assignations with the queen, who also supports Enlightenment ideas, and tutoring the Crown Prince. Christian soon receives congratulations from Voltaire for such reforms as abolishing censorship, privileges of nobility, and torture (and forced labor, slavery in the Danish colonies) as well as improved public sanitation and state orphanages. After Christian appoints Struensee as royal adviser and later as regent, the ax falls on the council of nobles, who oppose Struensee’s reforms and have been plotting against him. His enemies seize upon corroboration of his nightly visits to the queen, who gives birth to their child, as one basis to rally support to oust Struensee. Still not mentally capable of running the country, the king is cornered into signing orders to support the plot. In 1772, Struensee is arrested, tortured, and executed. The queen is arrested at the same time, banished to Hanover, and the marriage is dissolved. The Queen Dowager then restores the old order, with Christian only nominally king. Caroline dies in 1775, and the manuscript containing the truth of what happened is delivered from her deathbed to her son and daughter. Titles at the end indicate that her son, Frederick VI, was declared regent at the age of 18 in 1784, orchestrated a coup that year, and continued Enlightenment reforms, such as the abolition of serfdom. (The titles do not mention that he later became more authoritarian.) The magnificent history of A Royal Affair (En kongelig affære), based on the novel by Bodil Steensen-Leth, clearly merits a Political Film Society nomination for best film on human rights of 2012.  MH

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