Life in Denmark

Playful and occasionally provocative, veteran Danish filmmaker Jørgen Leth turns his sardonic eye on his homeland in this supremely charming short documentary shot in the ’70s. A collage of interviews with almost 100 Danes, from politicians to actors, young mothers to athletes, the film was intended as a challenge to negative clichés about the small Nordic nation as a dull backwater. As usual with Leth, the irony runs deep, drawing deadpan humor from willfully mundane material.