A War

Over the last decade, we've come to expect a lot from the Danes when it comes to making movies. This film, too, shows a lot of promise: its writer and director Tobias Lindholm also wrote the scripts for the fantastic Kapringen and the utterly haunting Jagten. Its lead actor Pilou Asbæk shined in R, Kapringen and Borgen. Does this talent show again in Krigen? Yes, it does.

It certainly does. The film excellently portrays the atrocities of warfare in Afghanistan through the eyes of company commander Pedersen (Asbæk), who is confronted with questions and decisions only soldiers have to deal with. Issues of survival, of morality, of death and life come to the fore in a film that shows nothing in war is black and white.

Why decide so-and-so? Why did such-and-such happen in this or that way? Could it have been altered? Could lives have been saved? Did I do the job I signed up for, or more, or less? The ways in which such issues haunt soldiers, their commanders, their families and even the Afghan locals, form the basis of this important film.

Lindholm refrains from falling into the pitfalls of making a typical gung-ho war film, or copying any of the thousands of battlefield depictions already produced. He produced a motion picture that will certainly stand the test of time because it is as much about the human condition on the battle- and home fronts, as it is about the fighting itself.

The cinematography is great, the sound is very decent and the plot ultimately leaves you with the same ambiguous feeling that many of the soldiers depicted will undoubtedly have. Krigen is a solid film that does not blemish the Danish film industry's good reputation, and is certainly a serious contender for this year's Academy Award for Best Foreign Picture.

Krigen (A War)

Krigen centres around Commander Klaus Michael Petersen as he serves in Afghanistan. At the same time as this his wife (Maria) and children are followed as she deals with the struggles of being a single parent as your other half is risking his life to preserve the peace thousands of miles away.

Having some time to reflect has lead me to conclude that this is one of the best and truest dramas I have seen in a long time.

A lot of this is down to the writing, Tobias Lindholm for me is one of the best dramatic writers working at the minute. It just feels so real and genuine, and the normalcy makes the situations where it's really dramatic have even more of an impact. Lindholm's directing also lends itself to this 'realism' as a lot of it is done with handhelds instead of steady cams. The performances are fantastic across the board, however I can't really point anyone out in particular, not in a negative way but more, again because of the writing. No actor gets this meaty, grandiose dialogue because in real life nobody does that, it just all feels real.

There are moments when you really feel the emotions going through the characters. Very early on - and this isn't really a spoiler - but there's a death in the regiment and one of the departed's squad mates is struggling to come to terms with this and their involvement in Afghanistan as a whole. This leads on to another point I was pleasantly surprised with, to do with the plot. There's been a lot of talk in recent years about how we're not being told about misconducts in the Afghanistan and soldiers are the bad guys but this, it never strays into that, rather depicts decisions made in the moment - decisions that none of us wouldn't do ourselves. To me anyway, I found how that was told strangely refreshing.

Also something I want to touch on is the sound, or lack of it in this case. There is very little background score which is really effective when it comes to drama and I wish more filmmakers would do this.

I'm not lying when I say that I'm struggling to find anything bad to say about this film, possibly the switching back and forth between Claus and his family may be slightly jarring for some, taking you out of it a bit, but I really don't know how that could have been fixed without taking that early character building stuff with Maria and co. out, something I'm really glad they didn't.

Looking this up on IMDb I saw that Tobias Lindolm was also the man responsible for one of my favourite foreign films 'The Hunt', which really didn't surprise me as that also was also really effective in telling a down-to-earth story. Danish cinema feels like something of a hidden gem as not a lot talk about it, yet the standard of filmmaking is so good! I don't really know if I think this is better as 'The Hunt' got me really emotional which this didn't as much, but anyway if I had to give it a score I'd say a solid 9 Danish Pastries out of 10.

A War is not just about one war in Afghanistan; it is also about a war at home in two parts. So I guess that makes three. Anyhow, director Tobias Lindholm, who scored big with his docudrama A High Jacking, repeats the illusion of reality while presenting a fully-metaphoric tale about a commander caught between saving a man under fire and endangering civilians, in this case causing the deaths of 11 Afghans.

As Lindholm depicted the tension aboard the hijacked tanker, in Afghanistan the tension is even more pronounced as bullets and mines abound with death even nearer than aboard the ship. Company Commander Pederson (Pilou Asbaek) is a decent man, whose second war is his attempt to be a father to children who have seen too little of him. Young Julius starts his own wars at school and Pederson's wife has a challenge keeping order, much less worrying about her husband in clear and present danger.

The third war, and the center of the film's drama, is his court marshal for violating International humanitarian law by murdering civilians. That he did not have PID (identification of enemy in the target) is the charge. Although it appears to be scant evidence he had PID, the director continues to show the confusion of fighting an enemy in the field and at home.

What makes this an Oscar-nominated Danish film is the non-manipulative narration, the lack of screaming at home, and the first-rate acting and directing. While the story strives to tell a linear morality tale, it ends up telling a story of not-so-clear motives and circumstances, whereby a good everyman faces implacable forces on the world stage and at home.

Although A War did not beat Son of Saul for the best foreign film of 2015, it will resonate with practically all the human race cornered by the conflicts in the Middle East.

Modern local conflicts and crisis areas have brought along a different approach in depicting military activities - confrontations without clear battle fronts, with a foreign military mission in assisting role. But as, in essence, there is a war going on, one is unable to predict every next move and incorporate all situations/events into specific legal framework; in the event of military events, there are always casualties.

Such is the background and essential point in Krigen, where the Danish Company commander Claus M. Pedersen (solidly performed by Pilou Asbæk) has to equally deal with both a severe accusation against him and his family (the characters of his spouse and three children seem to be more dynamic and interesting than those of officers and soldiers). I know that legal proceedings are not snappy, particularly among the Danes who are curbed and reticent, but still - the plot is a bit slow and arid, often uncovering the documentary aspect rather than that of a feature film, and the solution and the final scene are too plain. All this is just a narration running its course, and most of otherwise good and distinct actors have nothing profound to perform.

Krigen is not a bad film, but not at the level of e.g. Tobias Lindholm's Jagten or Submarino. For me, Krigen is a less intensive and less diverse than some related films, e.g. Stop-Loss or Brothers. Despite having an Oscar nomination, I would be surprised if it gets this award.

It's no secret that the Danish people are making very good films. In the last four years they have been nominated for three Oscars, including this film Krigen. It is a tale of Danish troops stationed in Afghanistan, with a special focus on their commander Claus Michael and his family back home in Denmark. The Danish troops takes daily patrols to meet and speak with the locals. At the same time back in Denmark, Claus Michael wife Maria struggles with their children, especially the middle son who is in a defying period. Life in Afghanistan changes quickly when suddenly one of the soldiers gets killed and Claus Michael during a heavy fire exchange, is force to make a decision that comes with devastating consequences.

Krigen is like many other Danish films brutally realistic and dramatic. With a limited budget, they hardly had any possibilities to make a big Hollywood war film, but in some ways Krigen captures something else. With smaller environments, more focus on the soldiers mental health and the relationship between them, Krigen feels very realistic. It doesn't glamorize war or the life of war. When the soldiers lives are put on edge, you really understand that they are also victims in something they perhaps don't fully comprehend. Parallel with the war in Afghanistan, we also see Maria's life in Denmark. She is forced to fight her own kind of battle and the contrast between hers and her husbands life is very interesting.

The best and really most scaring thing about Krigen is the moral questions it asks about war and warfare. When Claus Michael is forced to make a decision to save his squad, he himself gets into deep trouble and suddenly risk prosecution back in Denmark. The country he serves and the soldiers whose lives was his duty to protect, suddenly turns more or less against him. Very interesting and a bit disturbing. I don't think the purpose of the film is entirely to be an anti war tale, but more likely to create debate. What is it like to be a soldier so far from home and can the authorities back home in Denmark really make decisions about certain things when they couldn't possibly understand what it is like to be in the middle of a war zone? I have for a long time, wanted Sweden to make this film but Denmark beat us to it. A very strong and interesting film.

David Lindahl - www.filmografen.se