Land of Mine ‘Under Sandet’ is a film about the end of war; the pain kept locked away from view, the anger that simmered beneath the surface and the price one generation paid for the actions of those who came before them.
As the winds of the North Sea whip up the tiny grains of sand from the beach, a group of teenage boys lie on their stomachs, slowly crawling along the coast, metal rods in hand. They gently prod the soft sand, sweat running down their face as they move. One wrong move, and their young, thin, under-nourished bodies are no more. One slip and a deafening sound will replace the silence as their limbs are shredded, and the sand surrounding them turns red.
These boys have a job they didn’t ask for, a job they have no choice but to finish; they must carefully unearth landmines from a beach, extract the detonators, and defuse the devices. They are teenage prisoners of war in second-hand uniforms, whose young eyes have already seen too much and who want to go home. These boys are German, and the beaches they must crawl are Danish.
It’s 1945, and after five years of Nazi occupation, Denmark faces the challenge of removing 2.2 million landmines from its North Sea coast, where the Nazis wrongly thought an Allied invasion would take place. The morally dubious solution is the use of young teenage prisoners of war who entered the battle in the final few days, weeks and months of World War II. Land of Mine (Under Sandet) is their story.
Martin Zandvliet’s Land of Mine (Under Sandet) toured the festival circuit in 2015 to critical acclaim before earning an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 2017. Yet, despite its critical success, it remains a movie many people have yet to see. This is a film about humanity, ethics and hostility. Roland Møller’s tired, brutal and weary Danish army sergeant, Rasmussen, finds himself charged with a work party of homesick teenage German conscripts, including Sebastian (Louis Hoffman) and the inseparable twin brothers Ernst and Werner (Emil and Oskar Belton).
These boys aren’t soldiers; they are kids who dream of returning home to take up everyday jobs. That doesn’t stop Rasmussen from showing utter contempt for the boys who sleep in a barn and attempt to work on meagre portions of food and drink. But his icy resolve soon begins to thaw as he watches these kids crawl across the dunes, risking their lives and limbs while repenting for their fathers’ sins.
Land of Mine (Under Sandet) is a film about the end of war; the pain kept locked away from view, the anger that simmered beneath the surface and the price one generation paid for the actions of those who came before them.
Themes of intergenerational trauma surround Zandvliet’s film for both the victors and losers of a horrific World War that tore Europe and the wider world apart. Retribution and unspoken pain sit behind every decision, action, and choice. Yet these young boys crawling in the sand are not the enemy; they are kids caught in a cycle of violence and retribution that must be replaced by healing if peace is to be secured.
Land of Mine ‘Under Sandet’ (2015) is available to rent or buy.
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