FLAME AND CITRON
(Denmark, 2008, d. Ole Christian Madsen)

World War II stories are still very popular on screen. Germany continues to make them (Downfall and the recent John Rabe). The Austrians made The Oscar-winning The Counterfeiters. The American contributions range from the serious Valkyrie to Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. Smaller countries are also making memoirs of the war era and focusing on their Resistance. Paul Verhoeven's The Black Book did this for Holland. Flame and Citron is in the same vein and does it for Denmark.

Flame and Citron is a continually interesting film. Audiences outside Denmark do not know the impact these two men, Flame (because of his red hair) and Citron (because he had worked for Citroen), made in their Resistance actoivities in 1944 and the subsequent state honours and funerals they received as well as American medals.

The film opens with a voiceover from Bent (Flame was his codename) about the presence of the Nazis in Copenhagen in 1944. There is newsreel footage to remind us of Denmark's occupation. Almost immediately, there is an assassination of a Danish Nazi sympathiser. Flame, although only in his early 20s and working for the police, is one of the Resistance's chief killers. He is played by Thure Lindhardt . Jorgen (codename Citroen) is the driver who will soon have to kill as well. He is played by top Danish actor (Mads Mikkelson: After the Wedding and internationally known as Le Chiffre in Casino Royale).

The events in the film take place over six months. The film builds up an atmosphere of tension, especially when seemingly contradictory orders are issued. The Resistance is controlled by the Copenhagen police chief who is under orders from Britain. However, visits to neutral Stockholm are not so difficult, so there are orders from the Resistance movement there, including not killing Germans but only Danish Nazis or collaborators. When Flame and Citron are ordered to kill Germans and when Flame encounters a young woman who knows his name and, despite wondering whether she is a spy for the Germans, falls in love with her, the film creates tension for the audience who does not know whom to believe.

There is a back story for Citron, a seeming loner who has a wife and daughter. Flame is caught up with the mysterious woman. Because of betrayals and executions, they decide that the principal target should be the Gestapo chief in Copenhagen (Christian Berkel).

Quite long, with plenty of local atmosphere and a reminder of the ambiguous ethics of resistance movements, this is a worthwhile World War II film.