Flame & Citron

Introduction

 
Copenhagen, 1944.  Denmark has been occupied by the Nazi's since April 9th 1940, a rather flat invasion or annexation at first but one in which the Nazi authorities put more and more pressure on the Danes.  Some went along and tried to just live their lives, some were already Nazi's and were just waiting for the day, and some decided that armed resistance was the only solution.  The latter, as with all the other groups, all had different reasons and motivations for their decision to get involved in the resistance, some of them very grey indeed.
 
The two characters at the core of this particular story are a couple of resistance hitmen code named Flame (Thure Lindhardt) and Citron (Mads Mikkelsen).  Flame had been sent to Germany by his father years earlier to learn about the hotel trade, had a Jewish girlfriend who was betrayed, beaten and then vanished.  Flame hates the Nazi's and is happy to kill them all, one by one.  Citron is a sensitive family man who just cannot abide the thought of the Nazis being in his country.  Citron has primarily been Flame's chaffeur, but increasingly finds himself being drawn into direct action and killing, not helped by the fact that Flame has a rule about not shooting women.
 


Flame and Citron take their assignments from Aksel Winther (Peter Mygind), a police solicitor, and things starts to spiral out of control when Winther gives them orders to shoot two German officers and a female secretary.  Initially told that these orders are from London, it transpires that things are not quite as they seem and there is fallout from their actions when local Gestapo chief Hoffman (Christian Berkel) decides it's a good idea to throw a couple off grenades into a crowded tram as retaliation for the duo's action.  There's more confusion in the appearance of the mysterious fashion designer and photographer Ketty Selmer (Stine Stengard), a woman for whom Flame finds an unquenchable attraction.  But what exactly is her role?
 
As things start to unravel, betrayal and counter betrayal affect the duo's desire to complete their mission of killing Hoffman…
 

Sound

 
In Danish with burnt-in English subtitles.  No other options, but then you don't need any if you want to experience the acting performances as they happen rather than bland dubbing.
 

Extras

 
That Fabulous Picture Show Q&A - a excerpt of the Aljazeera show with Mads Mikkelsen that covers both this film, which is the one the audience watch, plus a summary of Mikkelsen's career to date prior to a short Q&A session with the actor.
 


Interview with Thure Lindhardt (Flame) - quite a good interview that delves into how the actors approached their roles, his relationship with Mikkelsen and how the country reacted after the film came out.
 
Interview with director Ole Christian Madsen - the director clearly knows his stuff after researching the events surrounding this film for a number of years before enough interest in the war was raised in Denmark to get him his financing.  He also elaborates on the slightly rewritten history of his country after the Second World War as the Government looked to gloss over their part in the occupation.
 
A Nation Under Occupation - text extra that gives some background on the various resistance groups in Denmark, explaining that it took a few years to get organised properly due to the Danish Government stance on the occupation.


 

Overall

 
European cinema is now starting to release some rather good films regarding the Second World War these days, and the good thing is that they're not full of cardboard cut-out heroes with the moral upper hand.  Following in the footsteps of both Black Book and Female Agents, Flame & Citron is a film about the grey areas of war and resistance against an occupying army.  The big grey area is the focus on Flame and Citron's mission, which is essentially to assassinate Danish collaborators.  No blowing up of railways or ambushes on German convoys here…
 
The two main characters have completely different motivations for their actions but work together as a team, their private lives affecting them in different ways.  Flame just hates the Nazi's; Citron wants his country back but also has to live with the consequences of the breakdown of his marriage.  On top of this, we have resistance leaders with their own agendas and informer who will betray their comrades, sometimes for money and sometimes for their own survival; but it's an unforgivable betrayal nonetheless.
 


Based on real-life events, Flame and Citron were the code names of Danish resistance fighters Bent Faurshou-Hviid and Jørgen Haagen Schmith, legendary fighters within the Danish resistance movement.  What is rather superb about this film is that it shows that mistakes are made and that these trigger doubts as to whether the right thing is being done.  Flame at the start of the film is a killing machine who just kills without thinking about it, but as things start to go wrong, including an ambush where a young child is killed, he starts to question himself and you get this feeling in his narration across the film's running time.
 
This is a superb film and thoroughly recommended.