A War, the third dramatic feature from Danish writer-director Tobias Lindholm, has been widely touted as the final installment of a trilogy about “desperate men in small rooms.” In R (2010) the perpetually haunted Pilou Asbæk stars as a frightened young man trying to learn the ropes in prison; in A Hijacking (2012) he plays a crew member aboard a Danish ship seized by Somali pirates; and in A War he’s a Danish officer in Afghanistan who stands trial for a war crime. Lindholm himself recently punctured this notion of a trilogy, explaining to Cineuropa that a bad phone connection had caused him to misunderstand a question from a U.S. reporter. These Danes! Doesn’t he know that, to get anywhere in this business, he needs to have a trilogy?
Asbæk dropped a few pounds to play Claus Pedersen, the military man of A War, but again his character is separated from his family and grappling with a strange culture. Claus commands a company of 135 men in Afghanistan’s southerly Helmand province, and his leadership skills are put to the test after one soldier is blown up by an IED during a foot patrol. As in the earlier movie, Lindholm uses electronic communications to raise the stress level: as the situation unfolds, Claus monitors a radio transmission back at the camp, listening helplessly as violence erupts on the other end. Concerned about morale in the wake of this incident, he summons the men to announce that he’ll begin leading patrols himself. “You’re here to safeguard and help civilians,” he reminds them. “So they can have a life. So they can rebuild their country.”
Directed by Tobias Lindholm
