Greenland
What Walter Mitty Missed
A movie that is seemingly a 2-hour long advertisement for companies including Life Magazine and the dating website eHarmony, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” tells the sweet and corny tale of a serial day-dreamer on his quest for one mans photograph and one woman’s heart. As difficult as it is to watch the movie behind the extreme amount of product placement littering the screen, my real concern with the film is the deeply flawed portrayal of some of the most amazing Northerly parts of the world.
A constant daydreamer, Walter ends up visiting two of my favourite countries on the map: Iceland and Greenland. A lot of the movie is filmed in Iceland, including all the Greenlandic scenes. Maybe if Walter had actually flown into Nuuk he wouldn’t have been greeted to decaying buildings and an isolated airport, in fact I remember when I flew into the city the airport was absolutely buzzing and I even had to wait in line behind a few people to get a cab into the center of town! But it seems I visited a very different Nuuk to the one on the big screen…
Walter leaves the airport to visit a tiny pub. Greeted by a small group of local drunks singing tragic karaoke and drinking beer out of boots, he is told by one of the drunken locals firsthand “there are like eight people in Greenland”. The population of Nuuk is extremely small but not eight people small; more like sixteen thousand people small. There are probably more than 8 drunken people too.
So what is Nuuk really like? Imagine a city surrounded by snow and ice-covered mountains and glaciers, composed of beautiful colourful houses all sitting cosily on the edge of a magnificent fjord where you can spot Icebergs and whales, a city that is impressively developed and cosmopolitan for such a small population, a city with a sushi restaurant and an Art Museum, a city with a cinema and theater, a city where if you ask for directions you will end up with a private tour – and an invite for dinner. That is the real Nuuk.
So here I sit, still questioning how the jumbo-jet Walter travelled on to Nuuk even landed in the box-like airport shown on the screen, and wondering if the real secret in Walter Mitty’s life, is that he missed the chance to visit one of the most magnificent capitals in the world.
tommyshaw
I gotta say I loved the movie but yea, they really missed the mark on Greenland.
It looks like an amazing place.
Clare Flourish
Lovely pictures. Thank you for sharing.