Two years after its discovery at the CanneSéries festival, the Danish dream fiction
The Dreamer: Becoming Karen Blixen
finally arrives on our screens.
Far from the epic breath of
Out of Africa
(film adaptation of Karen Blixen's novel
The African Farm
) with Meryl Streep, this biographical series recounts the late and difficult birth of writing, at the age of 47, of the Danish novelist.
Just after her return from Kenya, at the dawn of the 1930s. A painful resurrection for a divorced and ruined woman, forced to live off her family, whose opulence was undermined by the crash of 1929. Diminished through depression, the death of the man she loved, she is treated as an outcast by her family, who mock her literary ambitions.
If no publisher in Copenhagen wants to read her prose, she will hunt for it in London and the United States.
To discover
TV program this evening: our selection of the day
“A life of struggle”
Actress Connie Nielsen plays Karen Blixen.
The Scandi Nave actress, whom Hollywood discovered in the epic
Gladiator,
had the idea for the series while visiting the writer's house.
“
Prominently featured was a painting, done by Karen Blixen at age 17, with a surprisingly confident and sophisticated brushwork.
I couldn't believe my eyes
,” recalls Connie Nielsen, “
The curator explained to me that at that time the Royal Academy of Fine Arts did not accept women.
Karen was therefore not encouraged to exploit this talent.
No more than his other artistic aspirations.
» A characteristic trait of the society of the time, quick to repress the passions of young non-conformist girls.
Also read: Out of Africa, the best years of Robert Redford and Meryl Streep
“Karen Blixen is one of our most written about authors, sometimes with a lot of anger and resentment. Controversy is no stranger to him, particularly his colonialist bias. Yet few of us know the origins of his literary vocation, which was his salvation. There was something to tell. I really wanted to defend this rebellious soul who looks for trouble, marked from childhood by tragedy with the suicide of his father and who led a life of struggle
,” admits Connie Nielsen.
Refusing
"the academicism of biopics and their penchant for romanticism",
the actress and producer started from the novelist's correspondence and gothic short stories, drawing heavily on the one entitled
Les Rêveurs
, to depict her state of mind and her creative process.
These orientalist and adventure tales come to life in a spooky atmosphere reminiscent of
The Odyssey of Pi
, by Ang Lee.
The starry sky and a horizonless sea merge.
Blixen summons his characters and talks with them.
“Karen had a sensual and languorous style.
Precise, she painted with her words, reading it is like an immersive experience.
We wanted to find this quality,”
warns Connie Nielsen
.
Apart from the flashbacks filmed over a few days in South Africa, the series is disinterested in the sentimental tribulations of its heroine, preferring to analyze the balance of power within her siblings and highlighting the ambition, stubbornness and 'imagination.
By writing down her memories and embellishing them, Karen Blixen shows that it's never too late to make a new start.
Before our eyes, the starving figure transforms into a radiant woman and a literary genius.