Forestil dig (2004) Reviews

• Interesting new angles on Blixen

  hannequist2005-10-31

  I saw this documentary at the Karen Blixen Museum in Rungstedlund. As a great admirer of Blixen's writing, it was quite interesting to see this film about some of her other activities in life, like her painting (I didn't know she was actually quite a good painter as well), and her way of behaving quite like a primadonna at her home, even from a very young age at the art academy in Copenhagen. It seems like the Blixen Museum must have opened it's archives for this documentary film, as it contains a lot of photos, paintings and film clips I have never seen before. The film also tells the story of how aware and obsessed Blixen was at trying to get her stories accepted by the American ladies magazines in the 50'es. There is quite a funny anecdote of how she made a bet with a friend if she could actually get her story into "The Ladies Home Journal", and finally won a packet of cigarettes from her friend, as the story was accepted. We are also introduced to some rare screen versions of some of her stories, that I never knew existed, and we see clips from all these films. There is Orson Welles' "The Immortal Story" with Jeanne Moreau and there's some strange Italian screen version of her story "Ehrengard". And then of course there's the famous Oscar winning Danish film "Babettes Gæstebud" and "Out of Africa". If you visit the Blixen Museum in Denmark, I'll definitely recommend you to see this film.