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From Bergen to Malta, Liverpool, New York and Halifax: Norwegian merchant seamen Alfred (Kristoffer Joner) and Sigbjorn (Pal Sverre Hagen) sometimes seem to be competing for screen time with datelines in Gunnar Vikene’s epic War Sailor, Norway’s Oscar submission. Sprawling, packed with anecdote and surging from one dramatic peak to the next, War Sailor sets out to tell the stories of the ordinary but unsung heroes who helped defeat Germany in 1945. It has the best of intentions.

Perhaps if it had focused on fewer of those horror stories and cut that plot in half, it might not have also felt quite so much like a whistle-stop tour. As it is, director Gunnar Vikene takes us speeding through death, injuries and emotional trauma, the difficulties of post-war peace and onward to the farthest reaches of post-war Ptsd, three decades later. As a conscientious guide, he is determined we won’t miss a thing.

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Winston Churchill acknowledged that the 30,000 Norwegian merchant sailors signed up by their government to aid England and the Allies during World War II were instrumental in the victory against Hitler. But the story of these men and women, who never enlisted in the armed forces, remains a footnote, generally overshadowed by accounts of more traditional military heroes. Writer-director Gunnar Vikene pays stirring tribute to them in War Sailor (Krigsseileren), an impressively crafted chronicle of male friendship, courage and trauma that folds together intense action and intimate psychological observation with a moving portrait of the enduring after-effects on one family.

Norway’s Oscar submission in the best international feature race doesn’t have the Netflix visibility or classic source material of Germany’s war-themed entry, All Quiet on the Western Front. But this is an experience both visceral and emotional, distinguished by well-drawn characters...