This World War II drama is the best movie you don’t see in Netflix

I do not say that seeing a war film about the growing wave of fascism and the elections we take to give up or fight feel strangely relevant these days … but, well, maybe that is exactly what I am saying. If there is any gender in which we can trust to directly comment on our current political climate, after all, it is this. In recent years, World War II films have given us high water grades such as “Oppenheimer” and especially the disturbing horror of “the area of ​​interest.” But, as the clock, we always seem to obtain an annual series of titles that range from “forgettable” to “frankly wrong”. (Sorry, Mel Gibson, but I have not forgiven you yet for “Hacksaw Ridge.” Is metroacid More difficult, but rewarding, creating something both timeless and urgent with an immaculately elaborate effort.

“Number 24” (also stylized as “Nr. 24”) achieves all this and more. It does not come with the good faith head of an epic of the Christopher Nolan’s war (the “Dunkerque” fans know that he has done two of them), the experience of the Oscar season of a new version “All Quiet On The Western Front “, or even the action of Rah-Rah of” the Ungentlemany War Ministry “by Guy Ritchie. On the other hand, what this drama does in the Norwegian language is a much more off, restricted and deeply moving approach to a historical figure that most western ones have never heard. Although this is a dramatization of the exploits of Gunnar Sønsteby, the hero of real life that resisted the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany of Norway and became the most decorated fighter in the country, the film almost never enters the same difficulties of innumerable biopics before him. The results, frankly, are a breath of fresh air in a genre constantly at risk of feeling obsessed.

By avoiding typical conventions or clichés, director John Anderreas Andersen and writer Erlend Loe take what could have been another non -remarkable biographical film and transform “number 24” into one of the best most underestimated war dramas in years.

What kind of person is needed to face an invading army of fascists and decide to risk everything to defeat them? “Number 24” poses this question almost from the beginning. First we find Gunnar today as an old man (stoically interpreted by Erik Hivju) whose hard -transition narration perfectly transition to the backward scenes establishes in the middle of Norway’s autumn to Nazi Germany in 1940. Here, he comments early “, in a War. Cut Young Gunnar Punctually (played with remarkable steel and vulnerability by Sjur Vatne Brean), the script seems To indicate that he has taken his choice when he appears in his accountant work as if nothing had happened, not very different from the way we recorded at work, even while we see democracy to explode in seams on social networks. However, a casual meeting with an underground resistance fighter places him on a path that will define everything … not only his own life, but also the fate of his own country.

The spectators can be distracted by the framing device that places us in the perspective of a student audience in the current Norway, attending a conference held by the old Gunnar. But despite giving the game that the liberator of freedom, in fact, survives the events of the film, does not feel a single moment of sacrificed tension. That is due in large part to the very specific bets established by the “number 24”. Each act of resistance and rebellion can decide between life or death, of course, but Gunnar puts it perfectly after his age (25, confirms) and is informed that: “There is the possibility that it does not age. Did you think about that? “I can accept that.” There is simply more risk than if you live or not.

However, its courage is not the only example in “number 24”. Wherever they become, other compatriots make similar decisions: the local baker Reidun (Ines Høysæter Asserson) facilitates the secret meetings of the combatants of the risk resistance of their well -being, a captured soldier decides that they prefer to die than to create under an implacable Nazi torture And even Gunnar. Parents support him despite knowing that, at any time, the hidden identity of their child, since the resistance leader could leakes and bring the right of SS to their door.

Do not be deceived by the promise of explosive acts of sabotage, destruction full of CGI and all the usual vibrations of attraction film that accompany war films based on real stories like this. Although “number 24” certainly includes a handful of pieces of tense establishment and cathartic moments of Norwegian “terrorists” who do everything in their possession to force the Nazi invaders of their land, the real The pleasure of watching this film comes from your attention to detail. It has rarely represented Spycraft, struggles for resistance and anti -fascism with so much minimalism, or a total disinterest in the flash, as it is here. Photography director Pål Ulvik Rokseth chooses his places for scenes with dramatic lighting and even some carefully chosen moments of interpretive flourishes (such as when we see Gunnar “witnessing” a certain event that could not really have been in the room or an unexpected fall Anachronistic radioadhead needle), but otherwise adopts a dreary and washed color palette so that it coincides with the despair in the air.

This emphasis on the mundane is reduced to the very plot of the film, where they constantly treat us forgotten logistics and often insecure to raise a secret network of combatants. That does not mean that a single moment of this narrative is boring, yes, yes. Even while Gunnar serves as the “eyes and ears” of the government of his accumulated in Oslo, tirelessly doing the work of the law to build contacts and establish trust and strategically avoid the Nazi patrols, we face the extreme steps that are needed to survive ( and much less prosper to prosper) in such extreme circumstances. Gunnar is not allowed not to be distracted from the mission, either women or drinking or even taking a moment to breathe easily, and we see the toll that this takes, both during his past devastated by the war and his present presented by PREPT.

When we reach the emotional conclusion, the film touches its final hand and reveals itself as a reflexive meditation on the cost of the struggle for freedom. The sacrifices we make will be significant and we will have no choice but to live with the consequences … but isn’t that better than to look at authoritarianism? Gunnar Sønsteby represents the best lesson to understand the seriousness of the situation, and its history will leave you grateful for discovering this chapter of the little known history.

“Number 24” is currently being transmitted in Netflix.