The Bombardment (2021)

            “The Bombardment” (also known as “The Shadow in My Eye”) is a Danish WWII movie.  It was directed and written by Ole Bornedal.  The movie is base on Operation Carthage.  This mission called for the RAF to bomb Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen.  The attack resulted in one of the most tragic incidents of collateral damage in that horrible war. 

            The movie opens with a title card that tells us the Gestapo is holding resistance members in its headquarters in Copenhagen.  The resistance has contacted the British and begged for the building to be bombed.  The RAF is reluctant because the Germans are essentially using captured resistance members as human shields.  The film starts with a wedding party being strafed by a Mosquito fighter-bomber.  The happy young women are taken completely by surprise, as are we.  The attack is very graphic and pulls no punches.  The scene establishes the fact that RAF aircraft can make mistakes.  Foreshadowing!  A young boy named Henry comes upon the car which looks like Bonnie and Clyde’s.  He loses his ability to speak.  Henry is sent to live with his aunt in Copenhagen.  He goes to a Catholic school with his cousin Rigmor and her friend Eva.  Teaching at the school is Sister Teresa (the director’s daughter Fanny Bornedal).  Teresa is questioning her faith and a bit unstable (she flogs herself).  Frederik (Alex Andersen – Ivar the Boneless in “Vikings”) is a collaborator who is a member of the police force.  He and Teresa run into each other a couple of times.  They develop a strange relationship which is one between a guilt-stricken Gestapo stooge and a nun who feels friendship with evil will be a way to prove whether there is a God.  These individual’s fates will intersect at a school in Copenhagen.

            This movie is not for the soft-hearted.  It is based on a true story, but with fictional characters.  It adheres closely to the tragedy that was Operation Carthage.  If you are not familiar with this royal fuck-up, you will be after watching this movie.  I won’t go into the details because that might spoil the impact.  Just be aware that children are put in dire peril.  Director Ole Bornedal also wrote the screenplay and he has deftly juggled the story arcs of the main characters.  The movie revolves around the intersecting lives of Teresa and Frederik, the trio of kids, and the crew of one of the Mosquitoes.  It is a case of it being a small world, but none of what happens seems improbable.  Even the relationship of a nun and a collaborating cop does not induce head-shaking.

            The movie is well-made.  The CGI Mosquitoes are awesome.  It was a plane made for movies.  This is the third movie that it stars in.  The other two are “633 Squadron” and “Mosquito Squadron”.  The latter of those two has a similar plot to this one in that the Mosquitoes are tasked with bombing a jail to release resistance prisoners.  Operation Jericho did not have the tragic results of Operation Carthage.  The operation covers the second half of the film and it is thrilling.  There are some POV shots from the cockpit and we follow the bombs down.  The movie intercuts between the bombers, the school, and the Shell House (Gestapo headquarters).  It is suspenseful and then this is followed by the tension created by the fate of the children.  The cinematography advances to the next level in the claustrophobic scenes underground.

            Acting honors go to Fanny Bornedal.  Her Teresa is like no other nun you will ever see.  She is fascinating.  The child actors are very good as well.  The problem is that the movie is too short to develop most of the characters.  We get to know Teresa and Henry well, but the rest are just sketches.  In particular, no resistance member is fleshed out.  That can be excused because this is not a resistance movie, this is the story of a school that was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  This movie is an anti-war movie, but what it shows is that even if you are on the right side in a “good” war, you will still suffer.  Collateral damage is one reason why war should be avoided if at all possible.

            I did not expect much from this movie.  The recent Netflix war movies like “The Forgotten Battle” and “Munich:  The Edge of War” have been underwhelming.  We have had some good war movies coming out of Denmark, like “A War”, “Land of Mine” and “Flame and Citron”.  However, this movie had no buzz to it.  I was pleasantly surprised and emotionally moved by it.  It is accurate in bringing a forgotten event to the screen.  I was invested in the characters and the last third is edge of your seat.  And it is gut-wrenching.  “The Bombardment” is not for everyone.  But suck it up and learn something.  Those kids deserve to be remembered.  This movie should be a big hit for Netflix and it’s part of the reason I will swallow the increase in my subscription. 

 

GRADE  =  A-

HISTORICAL ACCURACY:  The film correctly gives the background in the opening title card.  The Shellhus was the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen.  It did hold about 30 resistance members who were being tortured and also served as human shields to prevent an attack on the building.  The Danish resistance petitioned the British several times to request the bombing of the Shellhus.  They were willing to sacrifice their own men to reverse the Gestapo’s successful campaign against the resistance.  The RAF turned down the requests because of fear of the dangers of low-level bombing of a crowded city.  Eventually, the RAF relented and green-lit Operation Carthage.  On March 21, 1945 three waves of six Mosquito fighter-bombers escorted by P-51 Mustangs targeted the Shellhus.  The ingress was successful and the headquarters was hit, killing 55 Germans, 47 Danish employees, and 8 prisoners.  18 prisoners escaped and most of the documents were destroyed.  The raid crippled Gestapo operations.  Although 4 Mosquitoes and 2 Mustangs were lost, the mission would have been considered a smashing success but for the smash of one of the Mosquitos.   

The Mosquito piloted by Wing Commander Peter Kleboe hit a lamp post and crashed into a garage near the Jeanne d’Arc School.  The crash started a fire which caused some of the bombers from the second and third waves to disregard the mock up of the city that they had been trained with and erroneously target the large building near the garage.  Two of the six bombers of the second wave and five of six in the third wave targeted the school.  (Ironically, if they had hit the Shellhus, none of the 18 escaped prisoners would have survived.)  The crews did not bother to ascertain which of the two buildings was the Shellhus.  We can assume they would not have bombed a school if they had known, but the mistake was still inexcusable.  Clearly one of the two buildings aflame had to be a civilian building.  The bombs devastated the school at a time when it was full of students.  Many were killed instantly by the delayed action bombs and others were buried under the rubble.  86 kids (out of 482) and 18 adults (mostly nuns) were killed.  It was one of the worst friendly fire incidents in WWII.  Unfortunately, every modern war seems to have a similar tragedy. 

P.S. Before you excuse Operation Carthage as a worthy mission that just had some bad luck, the P-51’s were armed with incendiary bombs and instructed to drop them on houses away from the Shellhus to create a diversion to help the prisoners escape. Several homes of innocent civilians were burned to the ground.  But at least they didn't have 500 pound bombs dropped on them too.