Under the sand - The promise of freedom

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Movie
German title Under the sand - The promise of freedom
Original title Under sands
Country of production Denmark
original language German , Danish
Publishing year 2015
length 101 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Martin Zandvliet
script Martin Zandvliet
production Mikael Chr. Rieks ,
Malte Grunert
music Sune Martin
camera Camilla Hjelm Knudsen
cut Molly Malene Stensgaard ,
Per Sandholt
occupation

Unter dem Sand - The Promise of Freedom (Original title: Under sandet ) is a Danish drama directed by Martin Zandvliet from 2015. The film was released in Denmark on December 3, 2015, and in Germany on April 7, 2016.

action

In May 1945, the Second World War ended in Europe. On the Danish west coast, the German Wehrmacht had buried more than two million land mines in the sand, which now have to be cleared. Very young German prisoners of war are used for this life-threatening task . You will be briefed on this by Ebbe Jensen, who is in charge of mine clearance. First they practice how to remove the detonator on common types of mines. A boy is killed in the process.

Sergeant Carl Rasmussen hates the Germans and beats up some defenseless German prisoners of war right from the start. He and ten young prisoners of war are supposed to clear a stretch of beach on which 45,000 mines have been buried. Rasmussen shows himself to be merciless towards the boys, but promises them that they will be let home when they have cleared the beach. You will be housed in the stable of a lonely farm. Lying on their stomachs, the boys have to probe the sand with sticks until they come across a mine. This is exposed with the hands and the detonator unscrewed. For the first few days they are not given any food and are not allowed to take breaks. Werner becomes ill, supposedly weakened by hunger, but still has to clear mines. Sebastian, one of the boys who takes on a leadership role within the group, tries to convince the sergeant to give them something to eat. Rasmussen refuses. Immediately afterwards, Wilhelm vomits over it while defusing a mine; both forearms are torn off by the explosion. He is taken to the hospital , where he later dies. The cause of Werner's / Wilhelm's disease turns out to be animal feed contaminated with rat poison, which was stolen at night by one of the boys from the farmer's stable, from whom everyone ate. The other boys also fell ill a short time later. The farmer's wife is amused that the hated Germans are suffering from their own mistake, but Rasmussen takes care of the boys for the first time by making them drink salt water, which causes them to vomit and survive. Rasmussen later steals a box of bread from the Danish military, which he drops to the ground in front of the stable where the boys sleep.

Gradually, Rasmussen grew fond of the boys. One night drunken British soldiers show up along with low tide and humiliate the boys by a. urinate on them. Rasmussen steps in because he needs each and every one of them. In a personal conversation, Ebbe is repelled by the understanding that Rasmussen is increasingly feeling for the boys. The next day Werner was killed while defusing a mine, which was specially designed to serve as a trap for the ordnance clearance troops.

Rasmussen gives the boys more and more freedom. He no longer locks the door of the accommodation at night and gives them a day off where they can swim in the sea and play football with him. On the way back from the beach, Rasmussen's dog is killed by a mine that was still in the area that had actually been cleared. In his grief and anger, Rasmussen bullies a boy, makes him fetch a ball and bark. The boys must walk through the entire cleared area under guard, ensuring that no further mines go undetected.

One day the farmer misses her little daughter and finds her playing in the middle of a minefield. She alerts the boys, and they clear a path to the little girl. Ernst walks across the field and distracts the little girl in order to dissuade her from wandering around in the mined area. When it is saved, Ernst, who cannot get over the death of his twin brother Werner, deliberately goes deeper into the minefield and dies.

When almost all of the mines have been cleared from the beach and the defused mines are loaded onto a truck, the boys talk about what they'll do when they get home. Suddenly a huge explosion occurs while a mine is being roughly loaded. Rasmussen runs to the scene of the accident with four boys who were not involved in the loading, including Sebastian. They find no trace of those who were busy with the loading. Only a few smoking wreckage remain from the truck.

Ebbe Jensen wants to deploy the four survivors to another section of the beach, contrary to Rasmussen's promise. There is a violent argument between Rasmussen and Jensen. Rasmussen gets a truck, picks them up at their new location and drives them to the German border. There he releases her.

Production notes

Filming lasted from July to August 2014. The film was shot on location, such as B. on the beaches at Varde . Furthermore, it was filmed in Stadum on the former site of the anti-aircraft missile group 25 . A real mine was discovered on the beach during the shoot.

background

The film is based on real events. As the Wehrmacht , the invasion was afraid of the Allies, let them build up a complex system of tank traps, wax plants, bunkers and mines: the Atlantic Wall . The west coast of Jutland , where more than two million landmines were buried, appeared to her to be a very likely area of ​​invasion . These had to be cleared after the end of the war.

Although the Geneva Convention of 1929 forbids any kind of forced labor for prisoners of war, the British military, in coordination with the Danish government, declared some of its German prisoners of war to be volunteer personnel of the enemy . Part of this evacuation team were boys between 15 and 18 years of age who had recently been drafted from school to join the armed forces or the Volkssturm .

These had to defuse the landmines in Denmark as "volunteers". They were neither trained for this nor did they have the appropriate equipment. From May 11 to October 4, 1945, these prisoners of war cleared 1,402,000 mines according to military documents. There is no precise information on the number of people deployed. Depending on the source, it was between 2000 and 2600. 179 of them lost their lives during the five-month mission, 165 were seriously injured, 167 were slightly injured.

reception

The film received a total of 26 awards and 20 nominations. Since members of the Wehrmacht are shown as victims in this film, the film was perceived as breaking a taboo. At the Bodil 2016, the film was recognized as best Danish film , Roland Møller as best leading actor and Louis Hofmann as best supporting actor. The film was also awarded the Audience Award at Robert and the International Film Festival Rotterdam . In the same year, the jury awards of the European Film Prize 2016 followed in the categories of camera, costume design ( Stefanie Bieker ) and make-up image ( Barbara Kreuzer ). At the same time, Unter dem Sand was nominated as Denmark's official candidate for an Oscar in the category Best Foreign Language Film .

The German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating of particularly valuable.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Certificate of Release for Under the Sand - The Promise of Freedom . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , September 2015 (PDF; test number: 154 456 K).
  2. ↑ LAND OF MINE - World Cinema. In: American Film Institute . Retrieved April 8, 2020 .
  3. ↑ https://danmarkshistorien.dk/leksikon-og-kilder/vis/materiale/landminerydningen-paa-den-jyske-vestkyst-1945-2012/
  4. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3841424/awards?ref_=tt_awd
  5. ↑ Sven Felix Kellerhoff: German prisoners looked for mines with their bare hands. In: WeltN24 . April 9, 2016, accessed June 30, 2018 .
  6. ^ "Under the Sand": Germans clear mines in Denmark. In: Passauer Neue Presse . April 4, 2016, accessed April 8, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Under the Sand - The Promise of Freedom. German Film and Media Assessment (FBW), accessed on November 10, 2018 .