There are so many movies about World War II that I can't count them. For the understanding of history, in addition to history textbooks, more is the influence of these film and television works. I remember that when Yu Meng was a child, he especially liked to watch anti-Japanese movies. The movies often described how cruel the invaders were, how they burned, killed and looted, which made me very angry. There is also a phenomenon in film and television works, where the filming party will deliberately design the characters of the hostile countries to be very silly. Although the audience will feel very cool, what's the point of doing this other than making people feel good? Is it for hatred? In my opinion, the best war-themed works are to be as objective as possible, without deliberately smearing any party. In addition to being educational, it is more important to make people cherish the hard-won peace now.
Today is the International Day of Peace. As usual, I would recommend an excellent movie to fit the theme of today!
"Minefield" is a historical drama film released in 2015, the film was directed by Martin Sandvallet, Roland Moore, Mikkel Fursgaard, Louis Hoffman , starring Joel Basman.
The film tells the story of a demining team, a Danish officer Carl Leobald Rasmussen (Roland Mohr), guarding and leading a group of German prisoner-of-war boys, risking their lives on an uninhabited coastline. Dangerous, remove mines one by one. The young men, led by Danish officers, embarked on the extremely dangerous work of excavating millions of remnants of mines with their bare hands. In the process of demining, many young people were killed or maimed. After a long period of excavation, these young German soldiers finally finished demining the mission area, but just when they thought they could go home, the top officials of the Danish military gave They assigned a new demining mission area, and these young German soldiers could only be transported to their destination in desperation, but in the end, during the transport process, Karl made a choice, he let go of the few surviving children, Let them cross the border.
The film is based on a true story. After World War II, more than 2,000 German prisoners of war cleared more than 1.5 million landmines on the west coast of Denmark. Based on this fact, the film derives the story of this group of children and a strange mistress.
As I said above, it's not like many war movies, it doesn't have the grand battle scenes, nor the heinous acts of aggression by the hostile sides. It tells just a little post-war story about the psychological changes of a group of demining German children and a Danish non-commissioned officer watching over them during a few months of demining missions.
At the beginning of the film, it shows how much Sergeant Carl resented these German soldiers. After all, a very patriotic officer, how aggrieved during the 5 years when Denmark was occupied by Germany. He vented these fires on the German soldiers, hoping that they would go back to their own countries as soon as possible. This also shows Sergeant Carl's attitude towards the German prisoners of war who are about to participate in the mine clearance mission. He doesn't care if they live or die, he doesn't care if they are hungry or sick, they are not even the dog next to him to him. This was Carl's initial attitude.
After participating in the mission for a few days, these prisoners of war were already starving and collapsed. They went to ask Sergeant Karl for some food, but Sergeant Carl not only refused to give it, but also spoke coldly. One of the soldiers had to steal the food in the middle of the night. After the stolen pig food was eaten by the demining team, he began to vomit and get sick. Carl still didn't take their lives to heart, until a soldier was killed in the process of demining because of excessive vomiting, and his attitude changed. It was only after witnessing a teenager who had his hands and feet blown off that he realised they were taking part in the mission with their lives. Carl changed, he started secretly going to the kitchen to get them food, helped them bathe, and started to treat them as human beings.
As he got acquainted with these lads, he discovered that these lads were not really Nazis. They are just children, they just want to go home and eat a meal cooked by their mother after completing the task, find a job as a construction worker, and rebuild the devastated Germany. Their eyes are clear and there is no hatred. Although they are defeated countries, they live a magnanimous life.
I remember the book "The Complete History of World War II" that I once read, which gave me a profound understanding of all aspects of the original Nazi Germany. Hitler gathered his strength to advocate Germany up and down to participate in the war. Hitler was more brainwashed than any MLM company, they were just engaged in a wrong war under the leadership of a wrong leader. And these children are just victims. Maybe they are very simple and want to contribute to this country. Maybe they don't understand anything, but they are forced to the battlefield. Anyway, these kids are just casualties of the war.
Having learned more about World War II, I feel sympathy for these young German soldiers who could not return to their hometowns, but risked their lives to clear mines. Although this task is against human nature and international conventions, there is no way for the Danish people to send their own country's soldiers to carry out this life-and-death task.
The change in Karl's attitude can only be summed up in the word "prejudice". He hated Germany, German prisoners of war, and the German flag. When one is blinded by hatred, he cannot see the other. He could not see the clarity of the eyes of the young German soldiers, their honesty, their simplicity. Time is a good thing. After all, Karl is a man of flesh and blood. When he really knows these German soldiers from the heart, he is like one of their big parents. After parting in the evening, the door will not be locked, and they will be given a day off to play football, and they will talk about their hearts together. On the surface, the children are eliminating the mines on the coastline, but in fact they are eliminating the prejudice in people's hearts.
"Minefield" is calmer than those World War II films with war scenes, but under the desolate and quiet daily life, there is a crisis that may explode at any time. Landmines are buried not only under the sand, but also in the depths of the human heart and human nature.
The film has a muted mood change, initially, Carl punches and scolds the group of children, later, he sits and chats with the children, jokes, and even gives them a day off to play football together on the beach, It looks more like a teacher on a beach vacation with a group of students. The endless white sandy beach was supposed to be a landscape, but now it means death. In the end, Carl made a choice. He let the surviving children go across the border. From a professional soldier's point of view, he made a big mistake; but from a human point of view, he used his kind deeds to really end the war and remove a mine in his heart.
A very simple and unpretentious film, but it tells us that peace is not easy to come by, and we should do it and cherish it. Don't let the war to poison the next generation who have no experience in the world and still have a lot of vision for the future.
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