Flame & Citron

It's almost impossible to get involved in a movie while flying over the North Pole in an Airbus. The personal screen is small, the ambient noise of the jet engines great, and the viewer's disorientation complete. Flame & Citron, a Danish subtitled movie, had no difficulty grabbing me anyway. It begins with one of the heroes vomiting in the street as a result of watching victorious Nazi troops rolling into the capital city of his small European nation. Almost immediately, we are swept up into the heroes' terror as they perform grotesque cold-blooded murders in the name of national insurgency. Brilliant performances by Thure Lindhardt and Mads Mikkelsen involve us in the personal crises of honest citizens who are forced by war into the roles of brutal hit-men. As the action proceeds, their predicament becomes only worse as they doubt the validity of their orders, and ultimately, the integrity of the order-givers. The 'third reel' of the film is an ongoing crisis, and the outcome is not pretty. The only survivors are the sociopaths who sold out in their various charming ways. The story depicts the multi-layered nature of an occupied society, and the different commitments of its members --- to their country, to their offshore bank balances, and to their own skins. Even Flame & Citron, selfless insurgent heroes, are compromised, no one comes out of the Third Reich smelling of roses. Congratulations to writer Lars Andersen and to writer/director Ole Christian Madsen on producing a grown-up war movie that has nothing to do with the Pentagon or its suck-hole clients in Hollywood.

I don't know what to say about this movie. Original setting for many of us, Flame & Citron is based on the lives of two resistance fighters/assassins ("Citron & Flame") in occupied Denmark back in World War Two. The premise is that our leads are on order to do their killings but their own aim is to kill the leader of the local Gestapo unit. However, realpolitik, double crossing, self-preservation and a femme fatale all just get in the way of everything, so our lead duo have no option but to battle as much with their own as with the occupiers. Personal relationship problems for our duo helps to keep the film human, and the story never glamorises the pair, and in many ways does show them to be quite amateurish despite their legendary status even showing their botched jobs.

So how does it all go? Well, it's not an easy one to follow. Many a time not sure what to make of the storyline if we were to really learn much. The whole realpolitik aspect of the piece never seems to resolve and with so many sides in this film, it's hard to keep up. In fairness, that was likely the main point showing the true difficulty of war, as each group seems to play off of each other for their own ends, whatever they may be. This is a weakness overall, and with its length quite tiresome.

Acting in general is faultless and beautiful shots of the Scandanavian countryside plus panoramic views of the cities are great on the eye, but some bad camera work at times is just really amateurish and spoils things.

Overall a good film that is interesting and a new-ish angle for WW2 films. Some very good points and most will like it, but not as special as it possibly could have been.

FLAMMEN & CITRONEN (FLAME AND CITRON) is a dark long film that will prove to enlighten many about another aspect of WW II we know very little. Written (with Lars Andersen) and directed by Ole Christian Madsen it unfolds a true story about two 'heroes' of the Holger Danske resistance moment, a large group of Danish citizens who fought to kill not only the Nazi invaders but also the Danish supporters of Hitler's movement: the heroes are Flame (Thure Lindhardt) and Citron (Mads Mikkelsen) and the course of their lives is traced with brilliant use of sound, cinematography, a pervading darkness which serves the story well, and attention to minute details that makes the viewer almost involuntarily involved with their mission, their plight and the final results of their work.

In addition to the outstanding performances of Lindhardt and Mikkelsen, there are excellent performances by Christian Berkel as Hoffman, leader of the Gestapo, Stine Stengade as the puzzling spy/counterspy/ love interest Ketty Selmer, and a cast of bit players that remain in mind's eye long after the film is over. Though produced as an epic (and the film is a very very long 130 minutes!) the interaction between the lead characters is clearly defined and they come across as credible resistance fighters whose plight is always one of duress and fear.

As in all stories about war that are honest, there is no clear line between right and wrong, between survival and heroism, and it is to Madsen's credit that he keeps us in the shadows with every encounter. War is war and it alters everyone who is touched by it.

Grady Harp

I am very impressed, and pleasantly surprised. I do not know any of the other work of the director, but I will have to consider anything else I see his name attached to. My opinion of what we Danes manage to put together in the medium of film is hardly a secret... I tend to find myself underwhelmed. Before tonight, I only really considered two such recent features truly great(the more notable of those, in my view, being Murk), and, well... as cliché as it is, that number is now three. The plot is magnificent, and the twists so marvelous and unexpected. There is maybe one thread that I found unsatisfying, perhaps especially because of how much attention was paid to it, but that's it. The acting is excellent... the one bad performance was had by a kid, and it didn't need to be better than it was. Lindhardt and Mikkelsen haven't a single weak moment between them, and Mygind... thumbs up. The cinematography is spectacular, though I did find the, all in all relatively few, zooms a bit distracting, save for one or two(these may be a Scandinavian thing, something similar appeared in Show Me Love). The editing is effective... the action(do note that this is not a straight-on piece within that genre) works, the drama likewise, and the only real criticism I can come with in this area is that there are a handful of places where things could be clearer. The writing there is infinitely little to complain about, and a long line of positives about, including the psychology, the complexity, the characters(the consistency of which is almost entirely flawless, and the only real problem within that is really how at least one major character disappears from the movie) and the incredibly accurate depiction of the time, the environment, the types of people. This is remarkably engaging. There is a little sexuality, and some language, as well as a measure of violence, but I wouldn't call any of it gratuitous. You do need a basic knowledge about the period, the place and the people, before watching this, but hey, nowhere near as much is required as for Der Untergang/Downfall. I don't know if this is entirely historically accurate, but little, heck, hardly any, is Hollywoodized, and it's undeniably entertaining and strong. I recommend this to any fan of drama, and anyone who wants a visual representation of the situation this revolves around. 8/10

British film buffs are often critical of Americans for their supposed indifference to foreign-language moves, but there are signs that the transatlantic phobia about subtitles has now spread to our own shores. Films from continental Europe were once fairly common on British television, but they have now all but disappeared from terrestrial channels, and even on specialist movie channels like Sky Movies, TCM and Film 4 they are few and far between.

BBC4 is something of an exception. Following "The Killing" and "Borgen" that channel is currently having a love-affair with all things Danish, and it was there that I recently caught "Flame & Citron". It is said to be one of the most expensive Danish language movies ever, although the budget was only around six million pounds, peanuts by Hollywood standards. (Most Hollywood producers these days would pay out considerably more than that figure to meet the salary demands of just one of their film's stars). It is loosely based on actual events and deals with the Danish resistance movement during the latter part of World War II. The title refers to the code names of two members of the Holger Danske resistance group, Bent Faurschou-Hviid (known as Flame because of his red hair) and Jørgen Haagen Schmith (known as Citron, Danish for lemon, because he once worked for the Citroen car company).

The film opens in 1943 when the tide of war is starting to turn against Germany, Hitherto the Resistance has largely confined itself to sabotage and assassinations of Danish collaborators. Flame and Citron now receive instructions from their controller, Aksel Winther, to pursue a campaign of attacks against the Nazi occupiers themselves, something the Resistance has previously avoided.

Films about European Resistance movements made during the war or in the years immediately following it invariably had a simple moral structure. (I cannot recall any such movies actually set in Denmark, but there were numerous examples about other occupied countries, such as "The Day Will Dawn" and "The Heroes of Telemark", both about Norway, "One of Our Aircraft is Missing" about the Netherlands and "The Guns of Navarone" about Greece). The Resistance fighters are invariably shown as unambiguously heroic, as are their British or American allies, the Germans are unambiguously evil, and the local collaborators totally despicable. The film generally ends with our heroes having successfully performed some gallant feat of arms which will render invaluable assistance to the Allied war effort.

"Flame and Citron" is quite different. Despite its World War Two setting, it bears more resemblance to a modern spy movie or to a neo- noir crime drama than a traditional "heroic Resistance" film. One might call it, on the analogy of the revisionist Western, a revisionist Resistance drama. There are no British or American commandos on hand to lend assistance. The attacks which Bent and Jørgen carry out are only of doubtful value to the overall Allied cause. Most importantly, the moral boundaries are more blurred. Flame and Citron suffer pangs of conscience over the killings they carry out and never know whom they can trust. Is Winther in league with the Germans, or is he in fact pursuing his own personal agenda by settling private scores? Is Ketty, the glamorous woman with whom Flame falls in love, actually a double agent? Will the attacks on the Germans contribute to the liberation of Denmark, or will they simply provoke German reprisals against Danish civilians? Are the Germans in fact all villains? One high-ranking German officer claims to be part of his country's own anti-Nazi movement, and even if he is lying this claim does at least draw attention to the fact that by no means all Germans were pro-Hitler.

The atmosphere of the film is, despite occasional action sequences, subdued, with a muted colour scheme, symbolic of the dark shadows which Nazi rule had cast over occupied Europe. Although it does, I think, finally reach the conclusion that the Resistance effort was worthwhile in that the self-sacrifice involved played a vital role in enabling Denmark to preserve its sense of national honour, it does at least dramatise some of the moral dilemmas involved in active resistance to a brutal occupying force. Modern dramas from continental Europe about the war are not particularly common, but this is one well worth watching. 7/10