A War (2015)

I love this movie so much

Redundant and unnecessary.

Absolutely Fantastic

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Pilou Asbæk of 'A Hijacking' fame plays Claus Michael Pedersen a Commander of the Danish forces in Afghanistan. The men have to do the usual patrols and face constant threats from Afghan rebels and IED's. Then on another patrol he and his men come under heavy and sustained fire and in the fog of battle he makes a fateful decision that will have huge future ramifications.We also have the story of his wife back home and the daily trials of trying to bring up three kids and hold a normal life together with their father away for months overseas and only having a satellite phone to stay connected.This is a very intense film that captures the utter fear of war and the awful situations that modern warfare can land people up in. It shows this from all sides. The acting is just superb and the direction from Tobias Lindholm ('The Hunt') is very accomplished. They do have wobbly cam a few time but not the full on shaky cam that so many people dislike, but I can live with that. The translation of the sub titles is wrong in a couple of places but generally quite good. This is a film that had me on the edge of my seat, the time flew by and as such I can agree with all the plaudits and easily recommend this as a great one to see.

Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at 88th Academy Awards, A War (also known as Krigen) is a competently crafted tale that may give the impression of a war drama at first but in actuality is a contemplation of the trail of blood that even a slight mistake in the battlefield can leave behind & follows a two-segment structure that slowly merge into one.A War tells the story of the commander of a Danish military company who is stationed in an Afghan province. Meanwhile, his family back home is struggling to cope with his absence. Things are set in motion when his soldiers are caught in a heavy crossfire while on a routine patrol during which he makes a judgment call that results in terrible consequences for him, his family & the very people they were trying to protect.Written & directed by Tobias Lindholm, A War commences on an instantly gripping note and nearly every moment set in Afghanistan is effortlessly compelling. Lindholm's direction is brilliant for he shows the events as they unfold but later puts the viewers in the jury seat and asks them few difficult questions about right & wrong by revealing the carnage left behind by an earlier decision that looked reasonable before.The relevant characters do exhibit interesting arcs, the two concurrently occurring segments are in proper sync for the most part, and the locations & set pieces manage to give it an authentic look n feel. Camera-work is expertly carried out, especially during the moments of combat. Editing is a bit slow in the second half. But the actors remain thoroughly committed in their given roles and deliver sincere performances that carry no complaints.On an overall scale, A War is effective in bits n pieces but there are also times when it falls flat. The film skilfully captures the difficulty in properly assessing the surroundings when life is hanging by a thread but also questions the validity of the final choice made and who's to be blamed should it result in an unintended tragedy. While the story smartly exhibits the struggles of its characters, this Danish drama is simply a quest for the right decision in a scenario that's without such an option. Worth a shot.

Modern local conflicts and crisis areas have brought along a different approach in depicting military activities - confrontations without clear battle fronts, with a foreign military mission in assisting role. But as, in essence, there is a war going on, one is unable to predict every next move and incorporate all situations/events into specific legal framework; in the event of military events, there are always casualties.Such is the background and essential point in Krigen, where the Danish Company commander Claus M. Pedersen (solidly performed by Pilou Asbæk) has to equally deal with both a severe accusation against him and his family (the characters of his spouse and three children seem to be more dynamic and interesting than those of officers and soldiers). I know that legal proceedings are not snappy, particularly among the Danes who are curbed and reticent, but still - the plot is a bit slow and arid, often uncovering the documentary aspect rather than that of a feature film, and the solution and the final scene are too plain. All this is just a narration running its course, and most of otherwise good and distinct actors have nothing profound to perform. Krigen is not a bad film, but not at the level of e.g. Tobias Lindholm's Jagten or Submarino. For me, Krigen is a less intensive and less diverse than some related films, e.g. Stop-Loss or Brothers. Despite having an Oscar nomination, I would be surprised if it gets this award.

Over the last decade, we've come to expect a lot from the Danes when it comes to making movies. This film, too, shows a lot of promise: its writer and director Tobias Lindholm also wrote the scripts for the fantastic Kapringen and the utterly haunting Jagten. Its lead actor Pilou Asbæk shined in R, Kapringen and Borgen. Does this talent show again in Krigen? Yes, it does.It certainly does. The film excellently portrays the atrocities of warfare in Afghanistan through the eyes of company commander Pedersen (Asbæk), who is confronted with questions and decisions only soldiers have to deal with. Issues of survival, of morality, of death and life come to the fore in a film that shows nothing in war is black and white. Why decide so-and-so? Why did such-and-such happen in this or that way? Could it have been altered? Could lives have been saved? Did I do the job I signed up for, or more, or less? The ways in which such issues haunt soldiers, their commanders, their families and even the Afghan locals, form the basis of this important film. Lindholm refrains from falling into the pitfalls of making a typical gung-ho war film, or copying any of the thousands of battlefield depictions already produced. He produced a motion picture that will certainly stand the test of time because it is as much about the human condition on the battle- and home fronts, as it is about the fighting itself. The cinematography is great, the sound is very decent and the plot ultimately leaves you with the same ambiguous feeling that many of the soldiers depicted will undoubtedly have. Krigen is a solid film that does not blemish the Danish film industry's good reputation, and is certainly a serious contender for this year's Academy Award for Best Foreign Picture.