April 9th

Having mostly learned the history of WW II from the American perspective of the expected final victory, movies like April 9th, about Danish soldiers tasked with delaying the German invasion in 1940, or Uprising, about the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising, give me the very different perspective of the good guys losing.

In April 9th, a Danish platoon of bicycle infantry is tasked with holding off an invading column of German motorized infantry until reinforcements can arrive. 

It does not work out that way, of course. The bicycle versus the armored car is a fitting metaphor for the fighting that ensues, but the actions and character of 2LT Sand drive the story. He is repeatedly given questionable orders, faced with setbacks and shortages, and forced to fall back, and fall back, and fall back. Sand is an honorable man who must balance his duty to follow orders with doing what he believes is the best thing, and he must handle the tension of men vs mission when the mission seems increasingly impossible.

I found the movie compelling, but I'm interested in this kind of story. It only has a rating of 6.6 out of 10 on IMDb, so apparently it's not to everyone's taste.

It is free on Amazon Prime right now, if you are interested.

Addition, 4/2/23: I guess to make the review complete I should address some other film aspects. I'll put these below the fold, and there are some slight spoilers.

The acting is good, and I thought Danish actor Pilou Asbæk did an especially good job portraying 2LT Sand. 

The cinematography is fitting, staying close to the soldiers whose point of view the story is told through, and forgoing sweeping shots in favor of supporting the "fog of war" effect the story requires.

The characters develop through the story in a believable way. That is, the entire movie portrays roughly one 24-hour period, so there is no huge change in any character, but Sand and the other main characters do change in response to their experience of war. 

I think the movie creates an effective microcosm of the Danish experience of the war, at least as far as I understand it. It goes through hope of staying out of the war to optimistic resistance to surrender. There is an unresolved tension in the unrealistic orders given the platoon that lingers in the final scene. Should they have immediately surrendered at the beginning, saving the lives of their friends? After all, Denmark had no chance of winning. Or should they have fought to the last man to impede Hitler as long and as much as possible, or for the sake of honor? In leaving viewers with those questions, I believe it leaves them thinking about questions the Danes have been dealing with since that day. I appreciate that the movie doesn't attempt to provide answers or preach to the audience. It tells a story and lets viewers come up with their own answers.

Overall, right now, I would give the movie an 8/10 because it seems that, at 93 minutes, a little more time could have been used to develop other characters and give a slightly broader understanding of the war in Denmark, but I'm still thinking about this movie and may change my opinion later. It is quite possible that the movie may have done exactly what it was designed to do and anything else would have been superfluous.

After seeing this, a related movie I'm interested in seeing is The King's Choice, about the April 1940 German invasion of Norway.

Trivia: Although, quite appropriately, it isn't mentioned in the movie, the Germans conducted the first airborne assault in history during this invasion. German paratroopers jumped into Denmark to capture airfields and hit other objectives.