{"id":6455,"date":"2017-03-23T09:04:23","date_gmt":"2017-03-23T13:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6455"},"modified":"2017-04-03T07:28:31","modified_gmt":"2017-04-03T11:28:31","slug":"land-of-mine-under-sandet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6455","title":{"rendered":"Land of Mine (Under Sandet)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LandThis multiply-honored Danish-German movie from Martin Zandvliet (trailer<\/a>) also could have been titled Land of Mines, since it is based on Denmark\u2019s real post-World War II program that used POWs to clear the mines the Germans laid up and down the Danes\u2019 western seacoast. Apparently, someone in Hitler\u2019s command believed the Allied invasion might take place there, and when the war was over, the mines had to go.<\/p>\n

In real life, we\u2019re told, some 2,000 prisoners were given the task of clearing the beaches of 1.5 million mines\u2014a task New York Times<\/em> reviewer A.O. Scott<\/a> terms \u201cintuitively fair and obviously cruel.\u201d About half of these former soldiers, many of whom were mere teenagers, died or were seriously injured in the process.<\/p>\n

This movie, which has subtitles, is about 14 such prisoners and not easy to watch. Lacking the Hollywood cues that typically signal when disaster\u2019s coming and who will be next to die, every moment of training, every defusing of a mine, every run on the beach is tension-filled. Hardass Danish Sergeant Carl Rasmussen (played by Roland M\u00f8ller) doesn\u2019t think these prisoners should get by with a thing, and he works them hard. The story, then, is about how he gradually comes to see them as the young boys they are.<\/p>\n

The Danes are justly praised for saving the vast majority of their Jews in World War II, despite the country\u2019s occupation by the German army, but this almost forgotten episode shows a darker side. Not everyone is capable of compassion or of easy forgiveness. And where should the Sergeant\u2019s loyalties lie? With his countrymen (and the rest of humanity) who have suffered at the hands of the Nazis or with the boys now under his absolute command?<\/p>\n

The boys condemned to this excruciating duty, with its meager diet and the receding possibility they will ever return home, are portrayed by a fourteen young actors\u2014including a pair of twins\u2014who are utterly believable. Is their deadly task necessity or punishment? How much bravery is required just to persevere?<\/p>\n

A recent Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, Land of Mine<\/em> was shot on location on the Danish coast. A real mine\u2014one missed by the young searchers more than 70 years ago\u2014was discovered during filming.<\/p>\n

Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> Critics rating 89%; audiences 89%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This multiply-honored Danish-German movie from Martin Zandvliet (trailer) also could have been titled Land of Mines, since it is based on Denmark\u2019s real post-World War II program that used POWs to clear the mines the Germans laid up and down … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Land of Mine (Under Sandet) - award-winning movie about a near-forgotten post-WWII episode.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[366,266,57,104],"tags":[903,900,902,901,416,129],"class_list":["post-6455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drama","category-history","category-movies","category-the-morgue","tag-denmark","tag-foreign-film","tag-land-of-mine","tag-martin-zandvliet","tag-real-life","tag-wars-and-conflicts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1G7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6457,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6455\/revisions\/6457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}