There are two types of war movies made by entertainment industries around the world: those that glorify bloodshed and those that exist to remind people that we should not repeat the bloodiest pages of human history over and over again. You would think that the first category of movies were made by the most despicable people on the planet because they are stoking hyper-nationalist sentiments to benefit some political party and cheering on soldiers while taking innocent lives, and you would be right.
But I think the people behind that second category of movies are far more dangerous because they wax poetic about the horrors of armed conflict while writing letters to their respective political leaders to wreak havoc on the “enemy” after gobbling up the very kind of propaganda they are ostensibly speaking out against through their “art”; if you know, you know. With that in mind, let’s talk about Number 24.
Director: John Andreas Andersen
Writers: Erlend Loe, Espen Lauritzen von Ibenfeldt
Stars: Lisa Loven Kongsli, Ines Høysæter Asserson, August Wittgenstein
John Andreas Andersen’s Number 24 (stylized as No. 24 or NR 24), written by Erlend Loe and Espen Lauritzen von Ibenfeldt, focuses on the real-life member of the Norwegian resistance movement during World War II, Gunnar Sonsteby. The story begins in the present day, as Gunnar attends a meet-and-greet session with young students at a university to recount his journey as a freedom fighter standing up to the might of the Nazis. And then the narrative goes into flashback mode to show Gunnar’s transformation from an accountant to one of the most important figures in the Norwegian resistance forces.
We see Gunnar boldly orchestrating attacks on printing presses, weapons manufacturing factories, and more. But then the focus of the film starts to shift from his work as a rebel leader to when he became the mastermind of the operation to assassinate Norwegians who were Nazi sympathisers and informants, namely Karl Marthinsen and Erling Solheim. As this is a difficult subject to deal with, Sonsteby tries to approach it as lightly as possible. However, unbeknownst to him, there is a relative of a citizen of Norway, who was murdered by Sonsteby or his team in 1945, sitting in the audience who will not budge on the subject until Sonsteby accepts his mistakes.
I don't want to sound disrespectful, because World War II has been and always will be a very sensitive subject, but two-thirds of Number 24 is pretty generic. If you've seen one film about a freedom fighter trying to hide from the Nazis and dismantle their network at the same time, you've seen them all. This is because, regardless of nationality, anti-Nazi tactics were generally similar across the board. So, this isn’t necessarily a criticism of the methods that were used to kill Nazis, but it is probably a criticism of the stereotypical presentation of said Nazi killing methods. That being said, the third act is simply excellent because I’ve never seen anything like it.
Even if I were given a hundred chances to create a scene for a movie where a freedom fighter confronts the family member of a person he has murdered, and they are both from the same country, I wouldn’t have come up with anything. As a concept, it may seem simple; however, once you start thinking about it, you’ll realize that there is no morally or ethically correct conclusion that either side can come to. So, all you have are very direct questions and a bunch of ambiguous answers. That said, rather than finding the easy way out of this conundrum, the writers embrace the awkwardness and toxicity (?) of the situation and try to get the characters to reach some sort of middle ground, which makes me think this should have been a 20- or 30-minute-long short film.
Credit where credit is due: the 1940s section of the narrative is packed with great production design, costume design, art direction, period-accurate crew, cinematography, editing, soundtrack, and sound design. Like all the WWII-centric films that have preceded it, Andersen aptly captures the gloomy atmosphere brought with them by the Nazis, where bursts of hope are quite rare. The pacing is deliberately slow so that the audience can really feel the desperation of Gunnar and his compatriots. And the tone is fairly consistent, which is surprising because Andersen's later films have ranged from disaster action films to comedy dramas. Perhaps the two episodes of Okkupert that he directed gave him the motivation to tackle the war drama genre. But his stereotypical presentation of Norway in wartime shows that he is not so confident in handling such a complicated subject.
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