A Jewish girl, Esther, forced to conceal her true identity by pretending to be a boy on a German-occupied Norwegian farm, plots her escape. The challenge of keeping her true identity a secre... Read allA Jewish girl, Esther, forced to conceal her true identity by pretending to be a boy on a German-occupied Norwegian farm, plots her escape. The challenge of keeping her true identity a secret leads to a series of choices and consequences.A Jewish girl, Esther, forced to conceal her true identity by pretending to be a boy on a German-occupied Norwegian farm, plots her escape. The challenge of keeping her true identity a secret leads to a series of choices and consequences.
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Featured reviews
True stores always have a way of cutting through the fallacy of of what Hollywood and what it overseers hope us all to believe. That's way I'm a big fan of truth telling. Oh I know liberties are taken by screenwriters and others but the core of the story still rings true in most stories. I found this movie to be enlighten well acted. Sometimes the unwillingness of some in the world to except truth as it is written becomes a hard pill to swallow but the movie The Birdcatcher goes down easy as easy as the reality it is based upon. I loved this movie and the message it sends especially to the critics who continue no to be who they really are.
I am fussy about detail....When the girl jumps off the truck in the middle of winter and falls into a river...she gets to shore and throws her wet coat away and walks away in the cold soaking wet and not even a chill...Dry hair blowing in the wind..
A young Jewish girl, against seemingly insurmountable odds, survives the war disguised as a boy. The film portrays her as a young woman of immense courage and determination - and it is brought home to the viewer precisely what someone in her position might have had to endure. A beautiful, sad and thought-provoking film..worth far higher a score than it received.
A completely different kind of WW2 drama, The Bird Catcher is an eloquent, elegant film. Esther is a Norwegian Jewish teen from the picturesque town of Trondheim, who dreams of becoming an actress. Escaping a brutal Nazi roundup,, she finds a strange, tense refuge on a farm that will soon require her to make use of all her talents in order to survive. But many other characters also struggle to survive their own nightmares - the Nazi collaborating farmer, his dysfunctional family and decadent German officers occupying the farm. Parts of the plot might be labelled predictable, but were really just inevitable. The quality of acting and directing kept me involved right through to the poignant ending that spoke of forgiveness and compassion.
Norway isn't an area that our home knows a great deal about, so it was surprising that some of their folk during WW2 actually supported Nazi Germany. I would suggest it unlikely that 1 young female would go through so much on her own. However, this pulls no punches as to how difficult is was for any jewish person living in Norwegian society during the war. In this case, we have a young girl hiding out in on a farm, the lead actress doing a very good job with her part. The ending is, perhaps, a surprise and possibly unlikely. Perhaps you will take a serious look at this movie which tells one story of a young womans struggle without any involvement of "Hollywood", it has a "no holds barred" approach to some of the realities of war. Nazi Germany had much to answer for.
Did you know
- TriviaAugust Diehl who plays the Nazi officer Herman also played a Nazi officer in Quentin Tarantinos' Inglorious Basterds. He was the one who guessed he was King Kong when playing the 'guess who I am' game.
- GoofsThere are multiple scenes where it is obvious that Ola is a girl. Outside the farmhouse when the Nazi officials are arriving, the side shot clearly shows her chest.
- Quotes
NS Official: Nice to meet you.
- ConnectionsFeatured in La noche de...: La noche de... El cazador de pájaros (2021)
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Details
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- Also known as
- The Birdcatcher
- Filming locations
- Norway(filmed on location in)
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Box office
- Budget
- £6,500,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 40 minutes
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