Es war einmal ein Krieg

This Danish film is about life in Copenhagen during the closing stages of World War Two. It isn't really a war film in the sense that the war predominates. Instead, it is mainly about an adolescent boy coming to terms with maturity.

The war impinges only now and again as a series of incidents. The boys on their bicycles rejoice in a roadway full of tin foil, dropped by British aircraft the previous night to confuse the German electronic defences. The schoolroom falls deathly quiet as a uniformed German officer enters - but he is only inspecting space to be allocated to bombed out refugees from Hamburg. There is embarrassment when a lonely German soldier engages the boy in conversation about his dog.

And in the midst of all this, the boy fantasies about a girl, becoming a resistance hero to impress her, and marrying her. The scene in which he is able to inspect the contents of her bedroom is just as important to him as the episodes of wartime life. His parents and their friends tell jokes about the Nazis behind closed doors in the stultifying boredom of a curfewed city in the evenings. That is the only opposition they can show.

Everyone knows that it will soon end, but life goes on in the meantime. People must endure.

This is, perhaps, what it must have been like.

Using the WW2 as a background, for a much more universal and timeless story is not try often, but here you see a wonderful poetic story with perfect acting. Kjeld Jacobsen has his best role, and Willaume, Brusck, Miehe-Renard and Ingdal is all great. Funny, beautiful and classic - Rifbjerg/Schmidts best. 9/10