Nine Lives (1957)

 

                        “Nine Lives” (Ni Liv) is the first Norwegian movie about Jan Baalsrud.  Baalsrud was a resistance hero from WWII.  He survived a long stretch of hiding from the Germans under very adverse circumstances.  The movie was based on the book We Die Alone by David Howarth.  It was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1958 Academy Awards and in 1991 Norwegians voted it the greatest Norwegian film.

                        The movie leads with credit to the more than one hundred Norwegians who helped Baalsrud (Jack Fjeldstad).  He is in a hospital in Sweden.  Queue the flashback.  Jan and nine Norwegian commandoes land in Norway on a sabotage mission.  They make contact with the wrong A. Hansen and he tells the Germans.  A German gunboat is sent and the commandoes have only enough time to blow up their explosives (along with their fishing boat) and attempt to escape.  Only Jan makes it.  Let the chase begin.  He’s got a long way to go to get to neutral Sweden.  Besides Nazis on his trail, he has problems with the freezing temperatures and snowy conditions.  He suffers from snow-blindness and frostbite.  At one point, he has to amputate his toes.  He goes through periods of hallucination.  He spends weeks alone holed up in hideouts with little food.  He survives through strength of will, aid from strangers, and blind-ass luck.  The movie makes it clear that he is not the only hero.  There were brave Norwegians who were willing to risk their lives to help him. 

                        This movie was nominated for an Academy Award?  I can see it being nominated for the Norwegian equivalent of best picture, but Best Foreign Film?  I give it credit for being historically accurate and not enhancing the narrative into an action film (like the recent “The 12th Man”), but that does mean that there are stretches that are kind of boring.  While this is accurate, imagine how boring it was for Jan as he spent weeks in a shed, for instance.  Hell, he was so bored he cut off his toes!  The story was probably familiar to most historically literate Norwegians, but it did provide cinematic recognition for one of their greatest heroes and brought him to people like me who watch a lot of foreign war movies.  It also nicely gives credit to the brave civilians who helped him.

                        The problem with the film is most of it is unrealistic.  Baalsrud goes through a lot, but he doesn’t look like it.  He never looks like he is in terrible shape.  His facial hair does not keep up with his experiences.  There is no suspense.  He has few close calls.  This is probably accurate, but does not make for a exciting movie.  Contrast it with the recent Baalsrud movie and you can see how modern movies use more artistic license to get you on the edge of your seat.  I faulted “The 12^th Man” for over-enhancement.  For instance, it has a fictional Gestapo villain to cat and mouse with Jan.  But “Nine Lives” has no villain at all.  And it doesn’t show him cutting off his toes.  There we have the basic differences between a 1950’s war movie and a modern war movie.  I bet a current poll of Norwegians would not place it as the greatest Norwegian film.

GRADE =  C

CHRISTMAS MOVIE? The 12th Man (2017)

                        “The 12^th Man” is a Norwegian movie about a Norwegian hero.  Jan Baalsrud was an espionage agent who made an incredible trek Scotland after a failed mission to his homeland.  The movie was based on the book Jan Baalsrud and Those Who Saved Him by Tore Haug and Astrid Karisen Scott.  The movie concentrates on “those who saved him”.  It was the second movie about Baalsrud.  “Nine Lives” (1957) got an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film.

                        The film begins with background information on “Operation Martin”.  Twelve members of the Norwegian resistance were trained in Scotland to go back into Norway and sabotage German airfields and installations.  “Only one came back alive”.  Hey, spoiler alert, please.  Oh well, I liked “Lone Survivor”.  It’s about how you get there, not who gets there, I guess.  The disclaimer reads:  “The most incredible events in this story are the ones that actually took place”.  Does that mean the rest of the movie is bull shit?

                        Jan Baalsrud (Thomas Gullestad) is filing his report in Scotland.  This is the moment when I figured out who the 12^th man is.  The rest of the movie is told in flashback.  The mission was FUBAR (I don’t know the Norwegian equivalent) from the start as the Germans are waiting for their arrival and their ship is blown up upon arrival.  All are either killed or captured, except the incredibly lucky Baalsrud.  This will be just the first of his miraculous escapes.  The scene is vibrant, but you know the rest will be more of a trek than an action movie.  Jan has to swim an icy ford to evade the Nazis.  You might want to watch the movie under a blanket.  This is one freezing flick.  Jan is taken in by a family in the first example of how brave Norwegians were the key to his survival.  Especially brave because Jan is being hounded by a fanatical Gestapo agent.  Kurt Stage (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) is obsessed with capturing Baalsrud.  He is committed.  Committed enough to wade into freezing water to prove Baalsrud could have survived the fiord. 

                        You remember that disclaimer I mentioned?  Here is a scene that needs a good lawyer.  Jan skis through a town full of Germans.  He encounters Stage.  No one asks him for papers.  Suddenly, it dawns on Stage that this might be his man.  He sends a plane to strafe Baalsrud.  This causes an avalanche, but Jan survives it, of course.  The rest of the movie is a succession of sheds, shacks, and rocks that he hides in or under.  At one point, he is forced to cut off his toes.  Try not to throw up on your blankie.  You would not give this guy’s problems to a monkey on a rock.  Luckily, he has the most incredible luck and an incompetently competent Gestapo agent on his tail.  And he has lots of reindeer friends. 

                        This is the kind of movie that leaves you wondering how much is true.  The word “incredible” in the disclaimer is appropriate.  My research (see below) shows that the movie is pretty accurate.  The movie is well-made.  It has a straight forward chronology, including day markers – 7, 13, 26, 36, 59, 63.  Director Harold Zwart throws in some out of focus hallucination and surreal dream sequences.  There is some nice scenery, especially if you love snow.  The cinematography is a strength.  The performances are good.  Gullestad, a rap star in Norway, was all in for the lead role.  He practiced playing freezing in front of a mirror, but due to the conditions on set, he really did not have to act cold.  He lost 33 pounds in two months for the role.  Rhys-Meyers is appropriately menacing and does not chew the scenery.  Props to him for memorizing all of his German lines.  The movie also features the most valiant reindeer in war movie history.  It’s almost a Christmas movie.  If you like your Christmas movies with amputated toes.

                        Norway has given us a few good war movies.  This is one of them.  It has some flaws.  Some of the incidents are too incredible to be believed, whether they are true or not.  It lacks suspense since you know he is going to get back.  It adds a fictitious, cliched Gestapo agent.  But overall, it is entertaining and I learned about a great Norwegian hero.  Now I know two -  Jan Baalsrud and Max Manus.  By the way, it is better than “Max Manus” by a hair.  Or a toe.

GRADE  =  B

HISTORICAL ACCURACY:  In 1940, Baalsrud was fighting in Norway and was captured.  He escaped to Sweden, but was convicted of espionage and expelled.  He eventually made it to Great Britain.  He was trained by the Special Operations Executive as part of “Operation Martin”.  The mission was slightly different than outlined in the movie.  They were to destroy a German air control tower and then recruit Norwegians for other sabotage efforts.  The fishing boat carried him and three commandoes and eight crew men.  They landed and contacted a Norwegian man who unfortunately had the same name as their contact.  He ratted them out and the Germans attacked the boat with a gunboat.  They blew up the explosives on the fishing boat and tried to get away in a boat.  He was the only one to escape when the boat was sunk.  He did shoot two Germans, but he did not get shot in the foot and he did not swim an icy fiord.  The other ten (one was killed in the firefight) were tortured and executed.  There was no Stage that hounded him.  The various hideouts shown in the film are accurate.  One family that helped him were the Gronnvall’s.  The Germans were bivouacked in the school next door.  He hid in a barn and because of a storm was alone for five days.  He did slice the tips of his toes off to drain the blood and cut off his big toe in a shack he called “the Hotel Savoy”.  Later he amputated the rest of his toes in a snow cave.  He spent 27 days under the rock.  He was eventually put in touch with the native Sami people who used a reindeer stretcher to get him across Finland to Sweden.  It was not nearly as dramatic as in the movie.  He spent months in a Swedish hospital before returning to Scotland to train other resistance agents.  He returned to Norway and was there when the war ended.