Julefrokosten
Every
single company in Denmark, most associations and indeed any other group of
people outside family, have an annual Christmas lunch (julefrokost). I do not
think this is uniquely Danish. The format of it however seems to be outside the
ordinary. Most of my international friends see it as a bit of a culture chock
and feel a bit… uncomfortable about how rowdy a thing it is. Somewhere between
the pickled herring and snaps and watching your boss play air-guitar this is something
you remember. Unless you passed out with hazy ideas about what happened. If you
do not know what snaps is, google it. The best is called Rød Aalborg and must
be drunk at sub-zero temperature…
“Julefrokosten”
is a legendary movie about such a Christmas lunch that when completely off the
rails.
At Simonsen’s
Bijuteriefabrik it is time for the annual Christmas lunch. This is a small company
of the old school with a hierarchical structure, a place where people are
called by surname. But at the Christmas lunch all such titles and forms are relaxed,
and everybody are intent on having a good time. This means copious amount of
alcohol. And snaps, well, you really do not need a lot of those. Soon the
foreman Karlsen (Jesper Langballe) is hitting on Henny (Lisbeth Dahl), Merete
(Kirsten Norholt) hits on anything that moves, Peter Petit (Jørgen Ryg) speaks
fake Chinese and sits in the food, Borgunde (Judy Gringer) gets the party in gear
and Hans (Preben Kaas) is everybody’s best friend as he supplies drink. By the
time the manager, Simonsen (Bjørn Puggaard-Müller), shows up everybody are in
high spirits and he gets busy catching up.
This goes
from bad to worse when the party crashes Simonsen’s office where the stuffy bookkeeper,
Asta Asmussen (Birgitte Federspiel), thinks she will be hosting coffee and
cake, but instead gets into a fist fight with Borgunde. When they order a late
evening snack, the delivery guy gets sucked into the party and as drunk as the
rest. Even worse when a passing elderly lady sees Petit and Borgunde on the
roof and thinks he is about to get killed. Eventually half the party ends in
the detention to sleep it out.
Okay, I
have never experienced a julefrokost get to those extremes and generally drunk
people are only funny if you are drunk yourself, but this is one of the few
examples where they actually are funny, especially when you have experienced Christmas
lunches and know how wild they can get. There is something funny about how
stupid and embarrassing people can get when inhibitions are lost and, frankly,
a relief to see a movie where people turn funny instead of mean from drinking.
Not that these people do not have a LOT to think about afterwards and bitterly
wished they had held back a bit.
This is
also fun to watch because the cast is the absolute best Danish film could offer
by the mid-seventies. Every single role is filled by an actor who would be a
star on his or her own in any other movie, and yet nobody is drowning (well, in
snaps, but you know what I mean). This is truly an ensemble comedy. Sure, some
of the jokes are dated, but this is still way better than the remake from 2009,
mostly because it does not feel the need to moralize. We can all see that
objectively this is terrible, but it is also hilariously fun.
Our
Christmas lunch was postponed due to Covid and is due is three weeks. The food
and the snaps are ready and there are places on site to crash. Only question is
if we are getting too old for this stuff.
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