Under Sandet/Land of Mine (Martin
Zandvliet, Denmark/Germany, 2015
Impressive Danish drama covers the
German boy soldiers allocated to clearing mines from Danish beaches post WW2, the
Germans having decided that this was going to be the spot for the Allied
landings.
We kick off with brutal Danish Sergeant
Møller beating the bejesus out of one of the straggling line of German
prisoners, because he is carrying a flag. We get into the scene
of training officer Mikkel Boe Følsgaard working with teenage German
prisoners whom he shows how to dismantle German land mines, sending them into
the sand bagged shelter to work with live explosives - already suspenseful.
They are allocated to a beach under the
supervision of Sgt. Møller who shows them no sympathy, locking them in at
night and ignoring their suggestions. The big ask is making his attitude soften
plausibly and that is the strength of what is a remarkable film.
Unfed for days when the local farmer
doesn’t deliver, one sneaks out to steal feed from the cattle barn and they are
struck down by rat poisoning. The farm lady is delighted that she looks as she has killed Germans and
Følsgaard re-appears bringing military mates to pee on the kids. Møller urges restraint,
claiming to need the boys for his work but he’s been stealing bread and
potatoes from the hospital canteen (“For me and my dog”) to keep them going as
he realises the dreadful situation he has with boys who still cry for their mothers
in a crisis.
This unnatural alliance and (big ask)
Møller’s humanity are tested in what is an extraordinarily strong development. Subdued
colour and film making that showcases the strong performances.
It’s hard to not make a mine clearing
subject tense. Think the Powell & Pressberger The Small Back Room and
Robert Aldrich’s Ten Seconds to Hell. Martin Zandvliet meets this
expectation and goes further.
The actual procedure has been condemned
as a war crime but I can't help wondering what else the Danes were going to do about
those mines.
Jättiläinen/The Mine (Aleksi Salmenpera, Finland, 2015)
Aleksi Salmenperä's Finnish account of
the environmental disaster the giant Talvivaara Zinc-Uranium project
represented kicks off like an early Ken Loach drama doc.
The predictable narrative shows skullduggery
at board room level, where having got the better of a conglomerate in a business
deal makes them retaliate with patent monopoly and an impossible schedule.
Harassed Environmental Analyst Joonas
Saartamo has a job monitoring the company struggling to meet the deadline. He’s
inducted into their pot smoking hunting club and finds himself squeezed by his
employers and his critical wife. The back channel dialogue with the fetching
blonde ecologist doesn’t
work out.
Calamities ensue naturally - sulphates
in the water, heavy rain spilling contaminates into inadequate man made dams
and spreading to waterways. Saartamo emerges as a glum fellow by comparison
with his boss or the buccaneering company head whom the tension puts in
hospital. I found myself dozing.
The final stages where the consequences
play out as part of a police investigation are more interesting - the threat of
drug tests, the alternative spot with a Gold Mining company snatched away by a
colleague, a pay off offered across the corporate board room table loaded with
fruit platters (“I should never have come”) and the suspicious off-the-hook
ending.
The washed out colour scheme is becoming
familiar in the festival’s movies. The trailers seem to have fuller tones.
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