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The Hans Christian Andersen Christmas market, 2016

“One of the advantages of living in Odense is that we have the annual Hans Christian Andersen Christmas market.” That was the way I started my blog post about the market back in 2009 and I could do the same this year or any other year. Although I haven’t written about the market since 2009, it doesn’t mean that I don’t attend it every year; this year with my now seventeen-year-old daughter.

As the world-famous fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen is from Odense, Denmark, the market takes place in the old part of town in which he was born. The actual house is a museum today and the streets around it look like they did when Andersen was alive (1805-1875). During the market weekends, people working in the stalls even dress in 19th century costumes to make the illusion complete.

You can buy everything at the market from food and drinks to jewellery and dolls and you can even visit the doll maker’s magical house where the Czech doll maker and actor Patricie Homolová makes the most amazing dolls and puppets for the puppet theatre “Svanen” (The Swan).

At the market, you can get a ride in a horse-drawn carriage, visit the “living museum” where elderly ladies dressed in 1840 costumes demonstrate how lace and Christmas decorations were made back then and if you’re a kid, you can try funfair rides like the merry-go-round or a miniature train ride.

In and around the market square you are sure to bump into acrobats, musicians or members of the Hans Christian Andersen Parade, which consists of children aged 8-18 dressed like characters from Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales. This year I even spotted an old-fashioned night watchman, who was kind enough to pose for me.

However, to me the main attraction is the beautiful spiegeltent (mirror-tent) La Gayola: an Art Deco spiegeltent from 1947, which holds 350 people. It is so beautiful and there is a very special atmosphere inside. Each year we go there to get hot chocolate or mulled wine and the Danish Christmas-speciality “aebleskiver” (apple slices), which has nothing to do with apples nowadays as they are just small cakes of batter cooked over the fire in a special kind of pan to make them totally round. You eat them with powdered sugar and strawberry jam and they taste divine.

As usual, my daughter and I enjoyed our visit to the Hans Christian Andersen Christmas market and I hope you’ll enjoy the photos I took while we were there. I’m sure we’ll be back next year.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Last week I went to see the Harry Potter prequel “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” – a 2hours and 13minutes long PG-13 rated feature film written by J. K. Rowling and directed by David Yates. As it has received very mixed reviews, I didn’t quite know what to expect, but I feared the worst and hoped for the best.

The film takes place in the USA instead of in England and here the British wizard Newt Scamander arrives to New York in 1926 with a suitcase full of magical creatures – the fantastic beasts of the title. By accident the creatures are let loose and together with his American friends Tina, Queenie and Kowalski, Newt tries to get the creatures back while being chased by Percival Graves, the head of the Magical Congress of the United States of America’s (MACUSA's) Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

I have to admit that the film is quite charming with great special effects, but unfortunately you don’t get the feeling that you are back in the Harry Potter universe. In fact, it is as far from Harry Potter as it can be with the story taking place in the USA instead of England, the main characters being adults instead of children and the muggles no longer called muggles but “no-majs” (I’ve seen it spelled “no-mages” as well, but “no-majs” seems to be the official way of spelling it although it doesn’t make sense!). Actually, it could have been any fantasy film and as such it is a bit disappointing if you’ve expected a Harry Potter prequel fantasy film. As my cinema companion said, “This could have been a great film, but the makers ruined it by letting us believe that we were going to see something Harry Potter-related.”

Rowling does indeed seem to be going to great lengths to change the Harry Potter universe by separating it from England and attaching it to the US instead. This is not becoming at all, as the ancient magic of the HP universe doesn’t feel right in the roaring twenties’ America. In fact, I couldn’t help wondering if this film is one big sucking up to the Americans in the hopes that they’ll spend more money on the HP universe if they get the feeling that it belongs to them instead of the Brits. All HP films are made by American Warner Brothers, anyway, and all HP amusement parks are situated in the US (and Japan) with none in Europe, so why not move the stories to America as well and make them all Hollywood? Rowling has even created an American school of witchcraft and wizardry called Ilvermorny, which according to the film is much better than Hogwarts (or Hogwash as one American character calls it). Unfortunately, this is a bad move, as the charm and mysticism of the HP universe is lost among the “historyless” sky scrapers of New York City.

I for one feel alienated through this film that reduces the European wizards to an awkward, whimsical albeit lovable character, Newt Scamander. He is extremely eccentric with absolutely no situational awareness, but Eddie Redmayne lends the character a gentle charm without ever making Newt memorable. The two female leads, Tina played by Katherine Waterston and the Marilyn Monroe-predecessor Queenie played by Alison Sudol, are just as unnoticeable, Tina even bordering to boring. The baddie Graves played by Colin Farrell is as boring as the female protagonists and what is worse, he gives away the big “surprise” at the end by handing his protégé Credence Barebone (played stoopingly by Ezra Miller) a necklace with the symbol of the deathly hallows earlier in the film. The only really good character is the muggle, sorry no-maj, Jacob Kowalski played superbly by Dan Fogler. He is so extremely funny that his character alone is worth the price of admission.

As for the story, it is a little too long. As usual Rowling takes forever to get from point A to point B, but at least there are not as many plot holes as in her HP books. Even David Yates seems to have improved as a director, as “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” isn’t as “montage”-like as his four Harry Potter films (HP 5-8).

All in all, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” is a nice film, but simply not HP, and as such it deserves three out of five stars: ***

Doctor Strange

“Doctor Strange” is yet another super hero film based on a Marvel Comic character. It is directed by Scott Derrickson and has Benedict Cumberbath in the dominant lead as Doctor Stephen Strange.

Although I have once had lunch with some of the Marvel Comics artists in Los Angeles, I have never been a Marvel fan and I have never read a Marvel comic book. Furthermore, I have never particularly liked any of the few Marcel Comics-based films (such as Spider-Man, X-Men, Hulk and Thor) that I have watched. Still I wanted to see “Doctor Strange” because of its good reviews and because I’m a big fan of Benedict Cumberbatch, but to be honest my expectations were low.

In the film, we follow the talented but arrogant neurosurgeon Doctor Strange (Cumberbatch) who loses the use of his hands in a car accident and travels to Kamar-Taj in the Himalayas to be healed. Under the guidance of the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), he learns the secrets of hidden worlds of mysticism and alternate dimensions and befriends sorcerers Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Wong (Benedict Wong). Eventually Strange & Co. must save the Earth from the evil sorcerer Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) and the powerful Dormammu of the Dark Dimension (who is actually Benedict Cumberbatch, too!).

Let me tell you straight away: I loved the film! “Doctor Strange” is highly entertaining, action-packed and so funny that the audience (me included) roared with laughter several times. The special effects are marvel-lous, bending and turning whole universes inside out, which left me totally dizzy. Benedict Cumberbatch is perfect as Strange and it is a stroke of genius to make the Ancient One a woman instead of an old, bearded man. It is not the first time that we see Tilda Swindon in a male role, by the way, just think of Orlando in “Orlando” and Gabriel in “Constantine”.

All in all the casting is great, although it is difficult for me to watch my fellow Dane Mads Mikkelsen in the role of Kaecilius. I’ve never quite understood what Hollywood sees in Mikkelsen as he only has one facial expression! The only moderately entertaining thing to come from his casting was him jokingly complaining about Benedict Cumberbatch in Danish papers, wanting revenge because Cumberbatch first killed his older brother (the very talented Lars Mikkelsen as Charles August Magnussen) in “Sherlock” and is now battling Mads himself as Kaecilius in “Doctor Strange”.

Still, Mikkelsen is not enough to ruin “Doctor Strange” for me and I can’t wait for the sequel. It was just such a pleasant surprise that a Marvel Comics film could be that intelligent, entertaining and funny that I have to give it four out of five stars: ****