Flammen & Citronen (Denmark)

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Set to be released in Denmark on September 30th. Scandinavian-release only, English subs not present.

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Historically speaking the World War II film has been all but over run by the holocaust. This is not necessarily a bad thing and certainly not a criticism, there are important stories to tell there and lots of them. It does mean, however, that a good number of other stories, all of them important in their own ways, have generally been pushed to the side and forgotten. Enter Danish director Ole Christian Madsen and his Danish resistance film Flame and Citron to bring one of those neglected pieces of history to life.

When the Nazis rose to power one of the first targets of their expansionist goals – and one bizarrely neglected in the history books here in North America – was the Nordic region. After all, Denmark shares a border with Germany so it only makes sense that when the Germans began their outward push Denmark would be one of the first targets. And while the Germans quickly managed to occupy the much-smaller nation they were certainly never welcome there, with the Danes quickly organizing an efficient and ruthless resistance movement. Underground cells took their orders from forces in neighboring countries, moving quickly and quietly to eliminate Nazi sympathizers and local types believed to be collaborating with the enemy. And among the resisters none were more famous than the pair known simply as Flame and Citron.

The duo worked as a team for years, taking their orders and coldly, effectively, eliminating their targets. A knock on the door, a quick question to ensure they had the right person, and then a single gunshot before the pair walked casually back to their car, in plain sight of all, and simply drove away. The charismatic Flame was the normal trigger man, the taciturn Citron the driver and support. They seemed an odd couple but, driven by an obsessive need to reclaim their country, they were by far the most effective and unrelenting of their peers until, of course, they simply lost sight of who they could trust and descended into sea of their own paranoia.

Having earned a sterling reputation with a string of smaller dramas ranging from the dissolving marriage in Prag to the stylish addiction picture Nordkraft director Ole Christian Madsen has long been one of the under-heralded talents of the Danish film world. Flame and Citron is by far Madsen’s biggest film to date – it’s one of the most intricate and expensive productions in the history of Danish film – but throughout all of the intrigue and violence, throughout the chases, executions and espionage, Madsen never loses sight of what he does best, which is to tell real stories about real people. He never allows spectacle to overwhelm story and as a result Flame and Citron is one of the most effective and effective war pictures of recent days.

While Madsen is in complete control behind the camera, building an entirely compelling vision of 1940’s Denmark with seeming ease, it is the cast in front of the camera that does the heavy lifting as far as selling the era and the characters. Mads Mikkelsen – a great favorite in these parts – is stellar as Citron, a neurotic man watching his marriage simply melt away in the face of his obsessive involvement in the underground. Citron is not at all the sort of man who you would expect to find in a resistance movement – he seems far more likely to be balancing the books in the back room of some small business somewhere – and Mikkelsen catches that tension, a simple quiet man forced to become something entirely other by extreme circumstances, seemingly without effort. Thure Lindhart’s Flame, however … that’s the sort of guy you’d expect to find with a gun in his hand. Flamboyant, confident and stylish, Flame is a young man in his early twenties, fully confidant in his own abilities, a cop in his day to day life. If Citron was forced into this life, Flame was born for it and that basic contrast drives most of the film.

Subtly written with most characters occupying some space on the gray-scale rather than falling into clear black and white, with allegiances constantly shifting, with everyone playing some sort of an angle, where nobody is at all pure, Flame and Citron resists the sort of chest-thumping propaganda that marks so many films of this type. Yes, it wants to celebrate a part of its nation’s history and the people who sacrificed throughout the war, Madsen is a smart enough film maker to recognize Flame and Citron would not have been necessary if there weren’t all too many all too willing Nazi collaborators in the country in the first place. Flame and Citron is a beautifully crafted, flawlessly performed bit of work, very impressive on all counts.

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