As someone who grew up in the area and has always been interested in these events and heard the testimony of veterans (relatives) who was there, this movie doesnt succeed at all in capturing this battle, as it actually happened.
The movie spends a lot of time telling a very generic story about a mother and her child while simultaniously being put in a tough position, having to co-operate with the German invaders. This story occupies way too much of this movie's plot. The mothers attempt to help the british consul is purely fiction and rewrites history. The movie never fully commits in telling this tale of balancing motherhood, helping the germans while also trying to be a good norwegian citizen, the result is a mess of a story with some extremely questionable writing.
The movies biggest crime is how little it focuses on the actual battle and the struggles of norwegian and allies troops in some of the harshest conditions of the war. It should have been easy to make some truly great scenes from this mountain/winter war. We've earlier seen movies like Max Manus (winter war segments), Stalingrad and Leningrad portray war in similar climates much better with a more rustic and original style. What we are given in this movie is a fictional battle of a railroad bridge and about 10 minutes of footage of the actual mountain war.
General Fleischer who was crucial in Norway not giving in to Germanys demands, and in the operation that lasted 2 months, is never even mentioned.
Norwegian, Polish, British and French troops chased the Germans out of Narvik and all the way to the swedish border, before the allied forces pulled their troops out to defend their own soil. This is only briefly mentioned and the movie gives the impression that this was just a brief event, not the 2 months of brutal war which actually occurred.
So many of the characters in this film feels like charicatures. The mayor of Narvik was in reality a great man, and had a brilliant political and military mind. In the movie he is portrayed as some ridiculous cartoon character.
Many of the characters, native to the area sounds extremely forced. The butchering of the northern norwegian accents were quite frankly staggering to witness, even the few actors of northern norwegian descent sounded off. That could be down to the very poor script, but also the directing.
The film does in part succeed in the worldbuilding aspect of creating a pretty authentic 1940s Narvik, the costumes were pretty accurate and the sound was overall very good.
We never asked for a documentary, but when you give the movie the title it has, it is expected to atleast make an attempt to tell the story of the actual battle, and not focus on a generic, poorly written story that could have been placed anywhere in occupied Norway. Narvik was the centre of attention of the entire continent, and the defeat of the axis in Narvik continued to inspire throughout the war. Almost 10.000 people got killed, while in the movie you never get any impression of such a scale.
The great war movies of the past that focused on civilian life, usually also does a good job in portraying the surrounding events accurately and authentically, this cannot be said of this movie and the plot and dialogue suffers from a very weak script.
Overall its an OK movie which had the potential to be a great norwegian war movie had the directors, writers and producers just taken the time to study the vast amount of literature available.
Max Manus, Saving private Ryan and Stalingrad all portrays an authentic 1940s experience, while also managing to tell an inspiring story that feels rustic and original. Sadly this movie doesnt live up to any such standard.
4/10.
The movie spends a lot of time telling a very generic story about a mother and her child while simultaniously being put in a tough position, having to co-operate with the German invaders. This story occupies way too much of this movie's plot. The mothers attempt to help the british consul is purely fiction and rewrites history. The movie never fully commits in telling this tale of balancing motherhood, helping the germans while also trying to be a good norwegian citizen, the result is a mess of a story with some extremely questionable writing.
The movies biggest crime is how little it focuses on the actual battle and the struggles of norwegian and allies troops in some of the harshest conditions of the war. It should have been easy to make some truly great scenes from this mountain/winter war. We've earlier seen movies like Max Manus (winter war segments), Stalingrad and Leningrad portray war in similar climates much better with a more rustic and original style. What we are given in this movie is a fictional battle of a railroad bridge and about 10 minutes of footage of the actual mountain war.
General Fleischer who was crucial in Norway not giving in to Germanys demands, and in the operation that lasted 2 months, is never even mentioned.
Norwegian, Polish, British and French troops chased the Germans out of Narvik and all the way to the swedish border, before the allied forces pulled their troops out to defend their own soil. This is only briefly mentioned and the movie gives the impression that this was just a brief event, not the 2 months of brutal war which actually occurred.
So many of the characters in this film feels like charicatures. The mayor of Narvik was in reality a great man, and had a brilliant political and military mind. In the movie he is portrayed as some ridiculous cartoon character.
Many of the characters, native to the area sounds extremely forced. The butchering of the northern norwegian accents were quite frankly staggering to witness, even the few actors of northern norwegian descent sounded off. That could be down to the very poor script, but also the directing.
The film does in part succeed in the worldbuilding aspect of creating a pretty authentic 1940s Narvik, the costumes were pretty accurate and the sound was overall very good.
We never asked for a documentary, but when you give the movie the title it has, it is expected to atleast make an attempt to tell the story of the actual battle, and not focus on a generic, poorly written story that could have been placed anywhere in occupied Norway. Narvik was the centre of attention of the entire continent, and the defeat of the axis in Narvik continued to inspire throughout the war. Almost 10.000 people got killed, while in the movie you never get any impression of such a scale.
The great war movies of the past that focused on civilian life, usually also does a good job in portraying the surrounding events accurately and authentically, this cannot be said of this movie and the plot and dialogue suffers from a very weak script.
Overall its an OK movie which had the potential to be a great norwegian war movie had the directors, writers and producers just taken the time to study the vast amount of literature available.
Max Manus, Saving private Ryan and Stalingrad all portrays an authentic 1940s experience, while also managing to tell an inspiring story that feels rustic and original. Sadly this movie doesnt live up to any such standard.
4/10.