På fremmed mark (2000)

Director:

Aage Rais-Nordentoft

Writers:

Jens Dahl (writer)
Aage Rais-Nordentoft (writer)

Release Date:

24 March 2000 (Denmark)

Genre:

Drama | War

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Dead Children | Hanged Boy | Hotel | Child Murder | Taxicab

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Mikkel Bay	...	Vildbæk
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau	...	Holt
Anders Valentinus Dam	...	Morten
Anne Seier Hansen	...	Jacob's Girlfriend
Bjarne Henriksen	...	Ravn
Jonas Holm	...	Younger Brother
Pelle Hvenegaard	...	Jacob
Julia Jäger	...	Madonna
Albert Jalakas	...	Old Man
Eero Kaldah	...	UN Unit
Marika Korolev	...	Desire
Veronika Kovtun	...	Waitress
Erki Laur
Mait Malmsten	...	Young Serb
Nils P. Munk	...	Andersen
Steve Nicolson	...	Prince
Karen Nordentoft	...	Teacher
Frederik Meldal Nørgaard	...	Helge
Leida Rammo	...	Old Man's Wife
Tiina Tauraite	...	Translator
Galina Tikerpuu	...	High Ranking Female Serb
Mihkel Tikk	...	UN Unit
Johan Widerberg	...	Kurt Cobain

Runtime:

Finland:93 min

Country:

Denmark

Language:

English | Danish | Serbo-Croatian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Company:

Balboa Enterprise ApS

A tense modern war drama AKA "Foreign Fields"

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

SYNOPSIS: (moderate spoilers ahead)

Pa Fremmed Mark, or "Foreign Fields" as it is known in its English language incarnation, is a tense, terse war drama set in the 90s Bosnian-Serb conflict.

We follow Jacob, a young Danish UN soldier posted to Bosnia, and learn that despite being a crack shot, he doesn't have the urge to kill.

His immediate superior is Holt, a more experienced soldier, who takes Jacob under his wing. Following an incident with a drunken Serbian who Holt shoots to save Jacob, the two become friends.

Holt invites Jacob away for a special leave weekend. The two travel deep into the Bosnian countryside, there meeting up with three foreigners who are flown in by chopper - A Swede, and Englishman and his German girlfriend.

Jacob soon learns that the three have made an arrangement with Holt to go incognito into Serbian territory - to kill for the thrill of it.

The film follows their "Holiday in Bosnia" as the plan goes terribly wrong, and we are drawn along to its inevitable conclusion.

REVIEW:

This film, despite obviously being fairly low budget, has a really dark and ominous atmosphere well brought about with muted colours and well shot scenery, and strong performances from its leads. The stillness of the wartorn countryside is the perfect frame for the brief but brutal acts of violence that come with its "mercenary tourists" theme.

The publicity tells us that it comes "From the Producers of Breaking the Waves", and like that film, the pacing could seem slow to those used to faster paced action films. But this movie doesn't really qualify as an action film - it's more a thought piece about the nature of power, corruption and the dehumanising effect of war.

"Pa Fremmed Mark" or "Foreign Fields" is one of the few films that explores the Bosnian war - not as an examination of the politics of it, but using it as a backdrop for the wider themes it attempts to explore.

THE LAST WORD:

This film will not be for everybody, but it is definitely worth a look if you like darker material. 7.5/10