Netflix’s Secrets We Keep: The Secret is Out
Secrets We Keep, a Danish drama series on Netflix, shouldn’t be kept secret — if only because it gives Filipinas pivotal roles in the narrative, and underscores the significant roles they play in Danish society as well.
It also is an exciting mystery-thriller that will leave you guessing till the last frame of the last episode. Secret!
The fictional (in terms of plot) limited series casts Filipinas who have worked as au pairs in Denmark, with no previous acting experience. The director Per Fly (of Borgen) wanted it that way
They’re no Dolly de Leons (yet) but they get generous screen time and deliver the most hugot lines in the six-part series.
The director mined searing performances from the depths of both Angel (Excel Busano) and Ruby (Donna Levkovski), who both portrayed au pairs living in the same neighborhood. Excel’s acting is particularly unforgettable, or was she even acting at all?
“You know nothing of my world,” she tells her employer Cecilie (Marie Bach Hansen) in a haunted tone. “You are just lucky. Very lucky.”
A crime story, the drama’s spine is the au pair system in Denmark, because the entire six episodes rest on the disappearance of Ruby, a Filipino au pair working for an uber rich couple (Rasmus and Katarina Hoffman) in what is known as The Reserve or Reservatet in Danish, a suburb near Copenhagen that hires the most au pairs.
Even Denmark, known for its egalitarian society, has a so-called one percent — either the one percent that is very wealthy, and the other one percent made up of au pairs, mostly from the Philippines.
Cecilie is an employer you dream about and pray for — she helps her au pair Angel around the house. She and her husband Mike have a pre-teen son Viggo and a toddler Vera. Angel joins the family during meals and her quarters look like an upscale pad in Metro Manila. Until you see her ironing clothes that are definitely not hers in her bedroom and you know what her role in the house really is.
Marie Bach (Cecilie) says of Excel’s portrayal of Angel: “It was top-class acting, you couldn’t tell she was street cast.”
A whodunnit, the series is likewise a commentary on the au pair culture not just in Denmark but all over the world. Incidentally, Denmark reportedly ranks second only to the United States when it comes to au pairs’ wages (4,850 Kroner, around P26,515, in pocket money).
The plot thickens when Ruby, Cecilie’s neighbors’ au pair, vanishes, leaving everything, including her passport and hard-earned savings, in the drawer of her desk in a fairly large room in the basement of the Hoffman mansion. A discarded pregnancy kit is also found near a trash bin on the street.
In both Angel and Ruby’s rooms, you will see the director’s attention to detail — from a crucifix on the nightstand to packs of Oishi crackers.
Donna, who portrayed Ruby, says, “Finally, there’s a recognition of the au pair community in Denmark. When I was an au pair, I didn’t have much of a social (life).” But she is glad she had a community, just like the one portrayed in the series, to support her.
“We hang out together, we sing karaoke,” said Excel who travelled halfway around the world to Denmark to work.
“I guess I have the same reason as any other Filipino who has left the Philippines. My plan was actually not to come to Denmark at all. I actually wanted to go to Canada after I finished my healthcare assistant/caregiver (course).
“But I was too young to apply for Canada at the time. And I guess it happens for a reason because somehow, destiny had a different plan for me,” she told me, after I reached out to compliment her via email.
***
Secrets We Keep, written by Ingeborg Topsøe, exposes secrets — not just the secrets of the protagonists and victims — but also our own secrets.
Secrets of past and present omissions, commissions, complicity and guilt. Even the nicest, kindest people have secrets.
According to Ingeborg, who grew up with an au pair herself, “The Reserve” is a nickname, even a term of endearment, for the Gentofte municipality, north of Copenhagen, the municipality with the largest numbers of au pairs by far. “So it makes sense that the story of a missing au pair is set there,” she said in a Netflix behind-the-scenes interview.
Per, the director, says, “If I had to describe the theme in one word, it would be ‘repression’.”
There’s also the theme around class.
“Au pair literally means ‘on equal footing’,” said Per. “To be honest, they’re not equal.”
Ingeborg added, “I grew up with an au pair myself. Is it the cultural exchange we claim it to be? Or is just a ploy to get fairly cheap domestic help?”
Danica Curcic (Katarina, Ruby’s employer in the series) believes, “This is a unique insight into the one percent.”
The series also tackles the dilemma of working mothers whose children become closer to their caregivers. And something close to home — the irony that women have to leave their own children in order to care for other women’s children. Willingly.
Donna (Ruby) sums it all in one sentence in the behind-the-scenes-interview: “I want the viewers to see that life is not fair.”
And that is no secret. *
(Since 2000, more than 17,000 young Filipinas have received temporary residence in Denmark as au pairs. Officially, au pair placement is a cultural exchange program; however, it is also a domestic work arrangement where au pairs conduct domestic labor in return for food, lodging and allowance.)
You may e-mail me at [email protected]. Follow me on Instagram @joanneraeramirez.
- Latest
