IDSG Bonus 43: Copenhagen (2002)

Daniel and I consider the 2002 BBC television film adaptation of Michael Frayn's play Copenhagen about the famous and mysterious wartime meeting in Nazi-occupied Denmark between Danish physicist Nils Bohr and his German disciple (and friend, and substitute son) Werner Heisenberg at precisely the moment when quantum physics is opening up the possibility of the nuclear bomb. Also present is Bohr's wife Margarethe. The film flits back and forth between the historical events - in all their contradictory versions as remembered and constructed by different people - and the 'spirits' or 'shades' of the three people concerned as they hash out what happened, and what could have happened, and what it all means, from an existential afterlife as lingering historical memories. A beautifully made piece of classic television, a complex and multilayered drama, and a trio of haunting performances from Francesca Annis (Margarethe Bohr), Stephen Rea (Nils Bohr), and a very young and pre-Bond Daniel Craig (Werner Heisenberg).