Under sandet (2015) Reviews

• This makes "The Hurt Locker" seem like a walk in the park

  MOscarbradley2017-02-15

  This unbearably tense war movie is the Danish entry for this year's Best Foreign Language film. It's about a group of young German POW's who are forced to clear a minefield with their bare hands and it makes "The Hurt Locker" seem like a walk in the park. Brilliantly directed by Martin Zandvleit and beautifully played by a cast of mostly unfamiliar faces, this is an intelligent and unsentimental look a a piece of World War Two history usually ignored by the cinema and it has the courage to paint 'the enemy' in a good light and 'the allies' as villains. It's also beautifully shot in widescreen by Camilla Hjelm. See this.

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• Love and Its Limits

  katielynnbeam2016-03-28

  We love to hate the Nazis—Inglourious Basterds, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Schindler's List. They're the most reliable bad guys in cinema. And, as World War II and Denmark's Nazi occupation ends in Martin Zandvliet's Land of Mine, they're the most reliable bad guys to Danish Sgt. Carl Rasmussen. Land of Mine opens on Carl beating a surrendered and retreating Nazi soldier to a pulp. We mind, but not too much. Cue the German boys and Zandvliet's chosen untold true story of WWII — the Danish military force 2,000 young, surrendered German soldiers to clear nearly two million German mines from the beaches of Denmark. Half survive. The middle-aged Sgt. Carl receives command of a dozen such baby- faced Germans to rid one Denmark beach of its 45,000 mines. Through his early cruelty, he keeps them uniformed and in strict military formation. But uniforms quietly slip into plain clothes, and lines, into free-form playing boys who mirror the lush, rolling landscapes of Carl's beloved Denmark. Predictably, Carl lacks the wherewithal to enforce the starvation and mistreatment of his Nazis subordinates once he sees them as mere boys, who already fear daily they will be maimed or killed by mines. The boy soldiers become his sons—he steals food for them, plays with them, and forgives them. The only real question becomes the lengths to which Carl will go to protect them. Zandvliet tells his unknown story through unknown actors (this was the feature film debut for most of the boys). This casting choice provides us a fresh start, access to a new and unexpected world where mistreatment of Nazis ushers us out of a theater in tears and silence. German or Dane, the characters are unavoidably human, capable of both love and hate, both self-sacrifice and utter butchery. That cruel Nazi flare we've come to expect from cinema's WWII Germans is, here, wielded not by Germans but by Danes—Carl nearly beating to death the retreating soldier, Lt. Jensen sending the German boys to another minefield rather than home as promised, the Danish mother sneering a wish for the German boys' death. Yet, despite its cruelty, Land of Mine is a tale of love. At first, Carl's love for his country and its land is placed in direct opposition to any possible love for the German boys under his command. The Germans destroyed Denmark's land with buried mines. Love for this land leads the Danes to hazard the lives of the German youth to restore it. The problem for Carl and his Danish comrades is not an utter lack of love but a limit to its breadth. Carl intuitively loves his land, his dog, his people. But it is only through an unlikely grace—the burden of the mines, jointly carried— that he learns to love his enemy. In the end, Carl's love for the land merges with his love for the German boys. And Land of Mine ushers us away with one last thrilling landscape. It is not Danish. Nor is it German. It's both.

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• Great film – just a great film about life, the cancer of war, and death

  Duchino2016-07-11

  My dear friend Ilario, a cultured movie buff, had warmly suggested this film these past days, among the many he mentions and those we get to talk about, and I could perceive that he had figured how this "Land of Mine" would strike many chords with me. And it did; I watched it in original German/Danish with English subs (shaky at times, but OK), and the immersion was immediate from the impactful start. I'm sensitive to war scenarios and characters – especially lesser told ones – as this story tactfully paints a very sad, cruel and almost hopeless reality. The Sergeant is a great figure, the kids are true to life, the skies and beaches cold and lonely too. And full of death. "Under Sandet", instead, is full of cinematographic art.

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• Another great danish flick!

  Vikingbyheart2016-07-07

  Several World War II stories are not told in the books, being forgotten over time. Inspired by true events, the film Under Sandet (original title) or Land of Mine (in English) addresses one of these reports, which occurred in Denmark after the war. Fearing that a possible Allied invasion would take place from the Danish coast, Nazi Germany filled the entire length of Denmark's west coast with over 1.5 million mines. With the German surrender and the end of the war in May 1945, more than 2,000 German prisoners of war were sent to disarm those landmines. The story focuses on a small group of young Germans who have the hard and dangerous task of clearing 45,000 mines from a danish beach to gain freedom. The film, written and directed by Martin Zandvliet, is an excellent motion picture, managing to bring to the screen a work with a new approach, although all the other war films ever made before. With an original script, the director succeeds to convey the bitterness brought by five years of Nazi occupation in Denmark. He also portrays the exploitation of children dragged into war. One of the great successes of Zandvliet's direction and script is to show the war cycles: the winners, the danes, start to adopt the brutal practices of the losers, the Germans. It was precisely for situations like this that the Second World War broke out. France and other winning countries of World War required repairs and imposed absurd sanctions to Germany. The photography, by Camilla Hjelm, is to behold. And here, again, we have to highlight the director's work. The use of long shot captures the beautiful danish landscape, while more intimate moments allow us to monitor the interactions among those soldiers. Maintaining an intense pace, the tranquility and vastness of the beach are contrasted, at all times, with the danger that awaits them "under the sand", expression that names the film. The soundtrack is catchy and at times heartbreaking, fitting in the drama narrated in the film. One of the elements that makes Land of Mine a memorable experience is the excellent performance of Roland Møller, playing the role of Sergeant Carl Rasmussen, protagonist of the story. Responsible to oversee the group of German soldiers, Carl struggle to separate his military duties from the hatred he feels for the old enemy. The actor delivered a complex character, moody, bitter and angry, but at the same time which has not lost humanity that exists within him. The rest of the cast was also well chosen and psychologically developed, in which the actors who play the soldiers have different personalities. With a philosophical discussion about military conflicts as well as being very intense and beautiful, Under Sandet gives us a real view of the complexities of the Second World War and human behavior. Originally posted in: https://vikingbyheart.blogspot.com.br

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• Disturbing, Disquieting & Devastating, 'Land Of Mine' Is Essential Cinema

  CinemaClown2017-01-30

  Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the upcoming Academy Awards, Land of Mine (also known as Under sandet) is a disturbing, disquieting & devastating cinema that's inspired from the immoral & inhuman act that the Danish authorities perpetrated against German POWs, majority of whom were teenagers, following the end of the Second World War in Europe. Set in post-World War II Denmark, the story of Land of Mine follows a Danish Sergeant who is assigned the duty to defuse & remove over 2 million mines that were buried by the Germans along the coast during the war. Receiving a batch of teenage Germans POWs to carry out the operation, the Sergeant's initial hostility towards them begins to undergo an unexpected change. Written & directed by Martin Zandvliet, the film opens with a crucial sequence that establishes the seething hatred that the Sergeant has against Germans and takes it up from there. Every segment featuring the young boys trying to defuse the mines with their bare hands despite being obviously ill-equipped to carry out the dangerous task is nail-biting as hell and even more hard-hitting when they fail at it. Zandvliet's direction exhibits terrific restraint from start to finish and even more admirable is how he handles the characters & their arcs. Without choosing a side, he puts believable people on screen and keeps all their human attributes in tact, whether they are Danish or Germans. And while the hostile nature of the former against the latter is understandable, what the Danish authorities force them to do is equally inexcusable. Shot at historically authentic locations, the entire picture is splendidly photographed and the era of Denmark recovering from the war is wonderfully captured by its desaturated & earthy colour tones. Camera-work is hand-held, static & expertly controlled for the most part and allows the scenes to play out at their desired pace but the longer it lingers on the defusing process, the more suspenseful it becomes and majority of the time, ends on a heartbreaking note. Editing is skilfully carried out, for every single minute of its 1½ hour narrative is accounted for & is relevant to the plot. Every sequence on the beach is compelling & handled with patience and every explosion or casualty reverberates with the audience & the impact of it is deeply felt. The film does feel longer than its runtime but it is relentlessly gripping till the end. And further enhancing its grim aura is the poignant score that always surfaces on time. Coming to the performances, Land of Mine features an incredibly committed cast in Roland Møller, Louis Hofmann & others, with Hofmann impressing the most. Møller is in as the Sergeant overseeing the mine clearing operation and expresses his character's inner conflict brilliantly while Hofmann plays one of the young boys performing the fatal, endless task of defusing millions of buried mines with stunning balance, and the scenes between the two are its main highlight. On an overall scale, Land of Mine not only ranks amongst the best films of its year but is one of the finest films to come out from Cinema of Denmark. Incessantly human, powerfully moving & making a strong statement about what makes us human & why it's even more important to stay as one in times of bitter conflict, this Danish masterpiece is an extremely riveting example of its genre that treads a difficult path & is utterly discomforting at times yet manages to fully redeem itself in the end. An essential viewing by all means, this Danish masterpiece comes very highly recommended.

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