Land of Mine (Martin Zandvliet, 2015): Denmark/Germany

Reviewed by Thomas Madenwald at the AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles, California.

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Land of Mine tells the story of small unit of German POW’s forced to remove hundreds of thousands of landmines left in the the west beach of Denmark during the years following the end of WWII. The the unit of boys in their mid teens is led by Sgt. Rasmussen who begins the film with poisonous hatred of the young men but slowly begins to care for them.

Land of Mine is a beautiful cinematic rollercoaster of tension that would make Hitchcock proud. From start to finish I gripped the armrests of my seat and found myself muttering, “oh no, oh no, oh no”, multiple times as the scenes built to their climax. These almost unbearably tense scenes were one explosion of brilliance after another. This is owed to the fantastic writing, directing, and especially the outstanding acting performances that made you immediately attach yourself to the main characters and fear for their safety. The sheer beauty of this film will stun you frame by frame with mute, cold, and warm earth colors that give a sensation of watching a moving hyper-realistic oil painting. This intern, bleeds to a feeling of surrendered angelic realism that gives a small glimpse hope in the darkness of post WWII Europe.

One of the stand out scenes is when one of the boys decides to walk out onto the sand and kill himself after everything he has been through. It was so well done that it summed up the hopelessness and peaceful misery these young men went through.  The image of that young boy walking across the screen and dying will stay with me for years to come.

With all that being said, I would personally give this film an 8 out of 10. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to see a wondrous unforgivingly REAL instant classic, that will be taught in film schools for years to come.

 

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Published:
11.17.16 / 7am
Category:
AFI Filmfest 2016, Films