Singularity
Posted: 2018-02-05T00:32:41+10:00 In:

After World War II, twelve teenage German POW’s must clear a Danish beach of 45,000 landmines in order to go home.

Land of Mine (Under Sandet)

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    4 Reviews

    1. Uberwriter

      Instead of go home, how about gain their freedom?

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    2. Singularity

      If the war is over the POWs should have been returned, how were these POWs compelled? What does compelled mean? Do or die? I ask as it seems like an important detail necessary for justifying the inciting incident.

      The concept seems lean on plot. While their task is great and dangerous, I wonder what else is standing in their way? The whole film can’t just be twelve teens clearing a beach for 110 minutes.

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    3. Singularity

      how about gain their freedom?

      Well, yes, they wanted their freedom…. to go home.? Their specific objective goal was to be repatriated? to Germany, to go home. So…

      >>>If the war is over the POWs should have been returned, how were these POWs compelled?

      What most people outside Germany don’t realize, or prefer to ignore, is that after WW2,? ?there was a great ethnic cleansing in Middle Europe.? Millions of innocent civilians in the German diaspora , who had lived for generations in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, etc.? were expelled, forced? to move to what was left of Germany.

      In the Soviet Union, German POW’s were sent to labor camps in Siberia.? And most never returned.

      In Denmark, if the POW’s assigned to clearing the beaches wanted to eat, they had to defuse mines.? And they were Germans!? They did what they were told during the war — and after.? As I said,? this actually happened.?

      Compelling Germans to clear land mines was revenge, pay back for how the Germans treated the Danes during the war. (And settling scores going back to over 200 hundred years of territorial disputes with Germany.)? From the Danish point of view, what the Germans sowed in planting the landmines on the beaches, they now had to reap in terms of the hazardous work.? Pay back.

      >>>I wonder what else is standing in their way?

      Only millions of? Danes who hate Germans. This is established in the opening scene were the Danish sergeant assigned to supervise the young POW’s? brutally attacks them because he hates the very sight of them.? And other Danes just stand by and let him.? The message is clear to the POW’s and to the audience: nobody is going to defend the rights of the POW’s.? They are trapped in a hostile land and powerless.

      >>>The whole film can?t just be twelve teens clearing a beach for 110 minutes.
      Of course, there are complications, reversals, and character arcs, but the tension is sustained by the fact that the work is so damn dangerous.? In every scene where they are clearing mines, you know they could die at any moment.? And every 15-20 minutes, some one does.

      (spoiler alert)

      Only 2 boys out of the original group of 12 survive the ordeal.

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    4. Uberwriter

      As with any premise, especially the tired ww2 one, anything historically fresh would be jumped upon by “Hollywood.”

      Except perhaps anything which portrays Germans as victims – I? doubt the forces would allow that.

      While I don’t doubt these atrocities happened (nor would I want anyone else to purposely doubt), I would be shocked to see a filmmaker attempt this. I’d like to see it, mind you.

      Than again, maybe it’s time.

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