Der var engang en krig (1966)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Palle Kjærulff-Schmidt

Writer:

Klaus Rifbjerg (writer)

Release Date:

16 November 1966 (Denmark)

Genre:

Drama | War

Plot Keywords:

Daydream | Young Boy | German Occupation Of Denmark | Boy | Fantasy

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Ole Busck	...	Tim
Kjeld Jacobsen	...	The Father
Astrid Villaume	...	The Mother
Katja Miehe-Renard	...	Kate
Birgit Bendix Madsen	...	Jane
Christian Gottschalch	...	Bedstefaderen
Yvonne Ingdal	...	Lis
Karen Marie Løwert	...	Lis' mor
Gregers Ussing	...	Frank
Jan Heinig Hansen	...	Markus
Birgit Brüel	...	Markus' mor
Jørgen Beck	...	Vennen
Elsa Kourani	...	Vennens kone
Henry Skjær	...	Rektor
Holger Perfort	...	Gymnastiklærer

Also Known As:

Once There Was a War

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

Denmark

Language:

Danish

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-8 | Sweden:11

Filming Locations:

Glyptoteket, Copenhagen, Denmark

Company:

Nordisk Film

Movie Connections:

Edited into Eventyret om dansk film 16: I lyset af en filmlov - 1965-1966 (1996) (V)

The banalities and problems of life in an occupied country.

This Danish film is about life in Copenhagen during the closing stages of World War Two. It isn't really a war film in the sense that the war predominates. Instead, it is mainly about an adolescent boy coming to terms with maturity.

The war impinges only now and again as a series of incidents. The boys on their bicycles rejoice in a roadway full of tin foil, dropped by British aircraft the previous night to confuse the German electronic defences. The schoolroom falls deathly quiet as a uniformed German officer enters - but he is only inspecting space to be allocated to bombed out refugees from Hamburg. There is embarrassment when a lonely German soldier engages the boy in conversation about his dog.

And in the midst of all this, the boy fantasies about a girl, becoming a resistance hero to impress her, and marrying her. The scene in which he is able to inspect the contents of her bedroom is just as important to him as the episodes of wartime life. His parents and their friends tell jokes about the Nazis behind closed doors in the stultifying boredom of a curfewed city in the evenings. That is the only opposition they can show.

Everyone knows that it will soon end, but life goes on in the meantime. People must endure.

This is, perhaps, what it must have been like.