![]() ![]() That's what they're told.ĭirector Martin Zandvliet has created both a classic war film and a powerful anti-war statement. When the boys complete their task, they will be sent home. Untrained and despondent, they unearth the mines one by one, pulling out the delicate firing pins with hands shaking from fatigue and starvation. By day, they crawl on their bellies through the sand, poking ahead for the deadly mines. By night, the starving POWs are locked in abandoned barracks. On a cold and barren beach, fourteen boys are put under the command of Sergeant Carl Rasmussen, a tough and bitter Danish officer worn to the bone from the winds of war. What were they thinking? This film does not need a pun in its title. ![]() For some goddamn reason, the film has been retitled Land of Mine for its limited U.S. This largely forgotten episode of World War II history is dramatized in the Danish film Under Sandet ( Under the Sand), nominated for an Academy Award and generally acknowledged as among the finest Danish films of the last several years. The final wave of German soldiers sent to Denmark were mostly teenagers-children, essentially-conscripted by Hitler in a cruel last gasp. By then, most of the original occupying forces were dead or gone. Germany believed that the Danish shore was one of the probable landing spots for an Allied invasion.Īfter Germany's surrender, Danish officials commandeered four thousand German POWs to remove the landmines. His next project is the British/German co-production Remainder, video artist Omer Fast's debut based on a novel by Tom McCarthy, starring Tom Sturridge.In the final months of World War II, German forces buried more than 1.5 million landmines on the western beaches of Denmark. Turner, which premiered in competition at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. Most recently Grunert produced A Most Wanted Man, based on John Le Carré's novel and directed by Anton Corbijn, starring the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, Willem Dafoe and Rachel McAdams. He also executive produced Mackenzie's "rock 'n roll romantic comedy" Tonight you're mine, filmed entirely on site at the T in the Park Festival. He has produced and co-produced 11 feature films to date, among them Perfect Sense, directed by David Mackenzie and starring Ewan McGregor and Eva Green. From 2006 until 2009, Grunert was head of the feature division at Studio Hamburg and went on to found Amusement Park Film in 2009. After attending law school at the FU in Berlin, he started out in the film industry producing documentaries, before moving into TV drama working for various companies including Bavaria Film and CLT UFA. Malte Grunert was born in 1967 in Berlin. The Danish Brigade was in charge of supervising and handling the operation. The idea of using German prisoners of war to carry out the dangerous demining task came from British command, but was carried out with no objections from the Danish administration. The five-month demining process claimed more human lives than the entire length of German occupation in Denmark. ![]() To this day, the events surrounding the demining of the Danish beaches are considered taboo in not only modern Danish history, but also European post-war history. Many of the German soldiers ordered to defuse more than two million mines along the Danish coastline were mere boys - only 15-18 years of age. However, there is evidence that British and Danish commands deliberately changed the wording of the text from "prisoners of war" to "voluntarily surrendered enemy personnel" in order to sidestep the rules of the convention. The Geneva Convention of 1929 forbids forcing Prisoners of War to carry out hard labor or dangerous work. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |