As pointed out on my profile, I am enthusiastic about most Scandinavian television series. Last night a friend, who may or may not be scaly himself, turned up for a Scandinavian session (Borgen) with a dvd of "The Strange World of Gurney Slade", which I had asked him to find for me off the interwebs.
It was so good, we watched the whole 6 episodes.
I suppose it helps to enjoy it if you are old enough to remember England in the early 60's, a very strange and innocent world before the Beatles where you stood up for the National Anthem in the cinema, where the sense of security was suffocating. London, let alone England, most manifestly did not swing in the slightest in those days - for men to wear even coloured socks was seen as the mark of outrageous social deviancy.
In that context " . . . Gurney Slade" is avant garde and advanced, and it doesn't do too badly 55 years later.
The careful viewer will forgive the garbage street theatre and crap sub Luc Goddard ism, overview the boring parts of it as Beckettian audience participation, and even taking into account that it is a record of one man being so far up his own intellectual backside it hurts, may well judge it a work of genius, as I do.
It is a very, very, very strange piece of television, and to my world view, excellent.
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