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THE VERDICT: Denmark scored an Oscar Nomination for Best Foreign Language film this year with ‘Land Of Mine’, a title that is loaded with meaning. It’s dangerous work, but freedom awaits them at the end… Among the group are Sebastian (Louis Hofmann) and twins Werner (Oskar Belton) and Ernst (Emil Belton). Carl is tasked with leading a group of 14 young German soldiers to dig out, disarm and dispose of these mines. In anticipation of a possible invasion of Europe through Denmark, German forces littered beaches with over 2 million land mines – more than any other country. The war may be over on paper, but it continues in his mind. As we discover in the opening scene, he hates them with a vengeance and for what they’ve done to his country. After five years of occupation by German forces, Sergeant Carl (Roland Moller) can’t wait to see them leave. THE PLOT: The Danish coastline, May 1945. Starring Roland Moller, Louis Hofmann, Oskar Belton, Emil Belton. In 1945, after surrender and de-occupation, Denmark’s German Prisoners of War are put to work undoing the damage.LAND OF MINE (Denmark|Germany/15A/101 mins)ĭirected by Martin Zandvliet. SYNOPSIS: During World War Two, the Nazis placed millions of land mines along Denmark’s west coast. This effortless picture is anchored by a barnstorming Roland Møller he and his director juggle motives and expectations to alarming effect.ĬAST: Roland Møller, Joel Basman, Louis Hofmann, Emil Belton, Oskar Belton, Oskar Bökelman, Mikkel Følsgaard
#Land of mine movie review series
The film is both intense and contemplative – far more so than Dunkirk and Hacksaw Ridge, two excellent recent war films that pretended to presenting thinkpieces on adrenaline but were actually, first and foremost, immersive actioners delivered here is a complement to these louder films, asking a more elaborate series of questions, and presented more tautly besides.Ī war film for both genre aficionados and viewers who usually couldn’t care less, Land of Mine stands next to The Hurt Locker, another thoughtful, well-controlled, and frequently agonising tone-piece. And it’s not just Zandvliet’s images: he carefully paints with time, here stretched out confidently as the viewer waits for disaster. Under these conditions, you actually wince each time you connect with an actor’s face, fearing your own could get blown off. The world feels eerie as the boys grimly brush sand off explosives extreme closeups on faces, hands and pins are dastardly in their effectiveness.
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Immediately though, much of Land of Mine is arm-flailingly, screaming-at-the-screen tense. So often films resurrect largely unknown stories, but still capitulate to over-stated generic tropes Zandvliet instead uses the understated nature of his subject – literally the cleanup after the main action – to comment, with complexity and clarity, on the real lasting implications of certain well-worn themes: heroism, patriotism – ultimately the morality of what we call loyalty. From this historical detail, writer-director Martin Zandvliet creates a mirror-image war flick where most of the action is internal and the victimised Danes may be the antagonists. WWII is over, and instead of combat we follow Denmark’s German PoWs rinsing their army’s sins: removing innumerable landmines from the Danish coast. Land of Mine is a war film, but only circuitously.