FILM REVIEW: LAND OF MINE

Palace Films

If victors get to write history, they also get to mete out the punishment. Sometimes that punishment suits the crime committed; other times it may be excessive or especially cruel.

At the end of WWII, the Danes decided to have captured German soldiers defuse the 20,000-odd landmines the German forces had buried along the Danish coast. A precarious undertaking for sure, but on the bright side, if they were to stuff it up, well it's no skin -- or worse -- off the Danes' noses.

Sgt Carl Rasmussen (Roland Moller) is placed in command of a team of eight or so German POWs, none of whom can be a day over 20. "If they can go to war, they can clean up the mess", is the reasonable argument of Lt. Jensen (Mikkel Boe Folsgaard), Rasmussen's commanding officer, and initially, the Sargeant has no reason to object.

Rasmussen's just as tough on the men: locking them in their makeshift quarters of an evening and neglecting to feed them until they're soon too tired for work and are stealing scraps from a nearby barn. But gradually, a respect and then a fondness develops between Rasmussen and his charges: unofficial leader, Sebastian (Louis Hofmann), Helmut (Joel Basman), Ludwig (Oskar Bokelmann), Wilhelm (Leon Siedel), and twins Ernst (Emil Belton) and Werner (Oskar Belton).

Land of Mine, written and directed Martin Zandvliet, may not be a horror film but it doesn't shy away from the horrors of these men's task. Nor, in the case of the Danes, does it ignore that there is such a thing as sore losers. Like all war films, Land of Mine is anti-war. Tellingly, and no doubt deliberately, the term 'Nazi' is never used, nor is there any mention of the Holocaust: we are to view these young men first and foremost as boys, then prisoners, and at worst, German soldiers.

And, of course, like Rasmussen, we come to care for the fate of these young men. Every time we witness them on the beach, tentatively searching for and defusing the mines, you are on the edge of your seat, holding your breath or peeking through your fingers. And as this is not an American film with recognisable actors boasting marquee value, there is no way of knowing who will survive the task at hand and who will not.

At 100-minutes, Land of Mine, which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at this year's Oscars, never overstays its welcome though ironically, it ends with a whimper rather than a bang. But in its best moments, it's gripping drama.