A War
Krigen

Danish writer/director/documentarian Tobias Lindholm follows up his masterful 2012 thriller A Hijacking with the complex wartime morality play, Krigen (A War).  Lindholm’s use of succinct, declarative titles in his recent pictures are fitting—these movies cover an enormous amount of dramatic, emotional ground via simple, unsensationalistic, real-world narratives.  The excellent stars of A Hijacking, Pilou Asbæk and Søren Malling, play respectively a military commander in Afghanistan and a lawyer who defends him when he’s accused of committing a war crime. Tuva Novotny plays the commander’s wife in a layered, formidable performance.  Lindholm is an expert in juxtaposing the horrors men face when working dangerous jobs, and the tolls these high-risk occupations take on their families back home. As with A Hijacking, the narrative shifts from one perspective to another and the unhurried quality of the time spent with each character expertly brings the viewer into the story almost as a participant.  Then, when we are ethically challenged in situations where there are no easy answers, we feel appropriately pulled in multiple directions.  A War lacks the intensity of A Hijacking, but its sober exploration of compromise and consequence makes it both more timeless and pertinent. It’s an ideal European counterpart to American Sniper, the previous year’s quintessentially American take on similar issues.  If only more contemporary war pictures were as small and personal yet as universally relevant as A War.