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Land of Mine

Mar13

An Illusion Review by Joan Ellis

Land of Mine

In all my years of slipping off to movies, I have never experienced anything like Land of Mine, a Danish story set in 1945 when the Danes forced German prisoners to search for and dismantle mines buried on the beautiful beaches of their country.

In the first scene, the Danish sergeant in charge displays his brutality with a force that silenced the theater for the full length of the film. After that there was not a sound in the theater. The natural expectation had been that it would be the good guy Danes vs. the bad guy Germans. That’s far too easy for this extraordinary study of what happens when men acquire the power of life or death over others, especially when the power shifts from one side to the other.

By assigning just twenty German boys to clear all the buried mines on just one beach, the movie becomes a graphic lesson of brutality unleashed on a personal level, a lesson in what war does to individuals. It is crafted so beautifully that it’s a safe bet that few stray thoughts came to anyone in that theater. Is anyone unaffected? No one moved when the lights came up and when they did, they lingered in the hallway, clustered in shock.

The monstrous Sergeant Carl Rasmussen (Roland Moller) has complete control over twenty young German soldiers, the skinny adolescent boys who were pulled in as the German ranks shrank as the war wore on. Under the sergeant’s brutal treatment, they crawl the beaches on their bellies as they stab the sand with probes. When the probe hits metal, they scrape the sand with their hands and unplug the fuse – unless it blows up. As if to confirm our broken assumption of the goodness of the Danes, we learn that the sergeant’s superiors are equally brutal. When we see flashes of decency in the sergeant, we realize again what war has done to him.

With rare skill, the film deals with what happens to those we think of as the good guys – here the Danish military who feel free to exact vengeance on the Germans who caused WWII, complicated by the fact that the enemy soldiers in this case are German schoolboys.

Those beautiful beaches became a field of death for Danes during war and for Germans post war. Both the Danish military and the German boys are acted with conviction so strong that it is no accident that we find ourselves astonished that our sympathies can shift at all.

When a movie is this overwhelming, the critical questions it raises become absorbing and the primary one is why, after centuries of wars that have killed millions, do men still sit around tables discussing war as a solution to disputes? This mighty film screams “Is there no other way?” Credit writer/director Martin Zandvliet with forcing us to think about that question. And credit the Danes for addressing both sides of it.

Film Critic : JOAN ELLIS
Film Title : Land of Mine
Word Count : 493
Running time : 1:40
Rating : R
Date : 17 March 2017

 

Eye in the Sky

Apr2

A Gripping Prophecy

An Illusion Review by Joan Ellis

Eye in the Sky

Is there anything Helen Mirren can’t do? With Eye in the Sky she does nothing less than show us the ways of modern warfare. Did you read in your daily newspaper that a top ISIS operator had been erased? This movie tells you how. It is a first rate thriller delivered by a good cast that startles audiences with the details of control by technology.

On one hand, we watch that extraordinary technology unfold; on the other, we are caught up in the fictional story built around that new science. Both are frightening. As new as drone warfare is, there are no rules written or implied to govern it, no precedents to interpret because there simply are no precedents. We have never before been able to position a functional camera inside a house in the Middle East while controlling it from a base in Nevada.

Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) is the officer in charge of following up on intelligence that says that #4 and #5 on the terrorist list are arming a suicide bomber in a small house in Kenya. She is in London; the drone operators are in Las Vegas; the pilot with a serious conscience (Aaron Paul) is airborne. Their arguments unfold through a multinational telephone hierarchy. Those conversations show us the confusion that attends the deadly new science and the attendant politics. Who will take responsibility for giving the final go ahead? We are in the new world of war.

Their mission: confirm identity, decide between capture and kill, obtain legal clearance, and guess at civilian casualties and collateral damage. All of this will unfold in a country that is not our enemy and for which there are no rules of engagement. The confusion comes to the audience in a high tension handoff by actors who convey the unique challenges of the new warfare. And then the inconceivable new ingredient: if they make the wrong decision will it hand a propaganda victory to the terrorists on YouTube?

The cast does a fine job of grappling with the emotional, political and moral implications of modern warfare. Helen Mirren, ice cold and grand as the Colonel, knows what must be done but her eyes show inner conflict. Aaron Paul touches our hearts. Director Gavin Hood implants troubling questions that linger.

Does the new face of war include the right to blow up a building in a country that is not our enemy? Will remote warfare mean fewer casualties for the bombers and the bombed because it can be targeted? Is there no chance at all of finding an alternative for international disputes in an era that promises eventual nuclear annihilation? How long before a terrorist hits us with this kind of a drone bomb? As is our custom, we invented it and used it first, but it will come back at us before long. This is a gripping thriller that plants the seeds of future trouble.

Film Critic : JOAN ELLIS
Film Title : Eye in the Sky
Word count : 497
Studio : Sony Pictures Classics
Running time : 1:40
Rating : R