One of the best films of the year, LAND OF MINE, is the cinematic cousin, or soul mate of The Hurt Locker and The Hill.
In a nutshell, this bombshell of a movie is set in the days following the surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945, when German POWs held in Denmark were put to work by the Allied Forces. With minimal training in defusing explosives, they were sent to remove in excess of two million of their own landmines from the Danish west coast.
The film begins with our introduction to Sergeant Rasmussen, military moustached veteran of the Nazi occupation, going berserk at the sight of a soldier, part of a column of vanquished Germans soldiers filing down the road, draped in a Danish flag.
Incensed to the point of inflicting grievous bodily harm, he screams at the souveniring soldier, “This land is mine.”
The irony is that the land is mined and Rasmussen must take command of a group of young Germans to neutralise the menace their military command has left behind.
Writer director Martin Zandvliet follows this burst of violence with a slow fuse sequence of basic training in disarming landmines for the young prisoners of war. One by one they are despatched into a bunker to de-detonate the explosive.
The tension is ratcheted up each time a newby is sent in, the fellow recruits and the audiences not knowing if the execution will end in execution. Seconds pass like minutes giving a verisimilitude to the situation.
Those who pass are handed over to Rasmussen, filthy at the Germans for their five-year occupation of his country, intent on punishing what is left of the Nazi regime, who marches his squad out on the dunes each day to prod for mines.
This process is fraught with frightful consequences, the legacy of loss of life or limbs, and the anticipation is dreadful. Calm becomes carnage quickly, a cat and mouse game with catastrophe. Rasmussen grows conflicted in his feelings and intent toward his young prisoners, his basic humanity rising above revenge, his natural quality as a leader kicks in and LAND OF MINE becomes a compelling tale of comradeship, survival, and unexpected friendships.
The film’s Danish leading role as Sergeant Carl Leopold Rasmussen is played by Roland Møller, a performance that is as assured, arresting, textured and nuanced as any you will see in the cinema this year. The rest of the cast fall in behind him to emulate his excellence.
Working with his wife, cinematographer Camilla Hjelm Knudsen, Zandvliet evokes the right mix of poetry and darkness. In keeping with the ironic title, LAND OF MINE, the setting of a beach in summer is as beautiful as possible in contrast to the horror you are watching unfold on screen.
Production values in every department are first class, with special mention to Stefanie Bieker’s costume design.
LAND OF MINE tells an important and humane story about revenge and forgiveness, retribution and reconciliation, and is a robust rebuttal of the use of landmines in any conflict.