Storyline
In the wake of the Second World War, the Danish authorities force thousands of German prisoners of war to defuse the millions of mines buried on Danish beaches.
Cast: Roland Møller -
Sgt. Carl Rasmussen
Louis Hofmann -
Sebastian Schumann
Joel Basman -
Helmut Morbach
Mikkel Boe Følsgaard -
Lt. Ebbe Jensen
Laura Bro -
Karin
Zoe Zandvliet -
Elisabeth, Karins Daughter
Mads Riisom -
Soldier Peter
Oskar Bökelmann -
Ludwig Haffke
Emil Belton -
Ernst Lessner
Oskar Belton -
Werner Lessner
Leon Seidel -
Wilhelm Hahn
Karl Alexander Seidel -
Manfred
Maximilian Beck -
August Kluger
August Carter -
Rudolf Selke
Tim Bülow -
Hermann Marklein
Filming Locations: Vejers and Blåvand in the Danish North Sea Nature Park, Municipality of Varde, Denmark
Opening Weekend: $13,754
(USA)
(10 February 2017)
Gross: $21,506
(USA)(10 February 2017)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia:
In the movie the Danish Sgt. Rasmussen lead the mine clearing operation. In real life these missions were controlled by the British forces, but with German Officers in command of each team. See more »
Goofs:
In the opening scene after Sgt. Rasmussen takes a flag from a German soldier we see him yelling at another soldier with nothing in his hands.
In the next shot the flag is back in his hand. See more »
User Review
Author:
Rating: 9/10
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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