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TELLURIDE FILM FEST

Telluride Review: Ole Christian Madsen's Flame and Citron

by Alex Billington
August 30, 2008

My second film of Telluride and it's a delightful surprise. Flame & Citron is a film from Danish director Ole Christian Madsen starring Mads Mikkelsen and Thure Lindhardt. Tinged with noir and unlike anything I've seen before, the film is a WWII drama about two resistance fighters, nicknamed Flame and Citron, whose job it is to drive around Denmark and kill German officers and other individuals who are helping the Germans. It is undoubtedly a very powerful and very well-made film, but there are some amateur aspects that detract from the the overall quality, including some cinematography choices and its excruciating length. However, it's still a fine film and fantastic achievement for Madsen and his two stars.

While Mads Mikkelsen (who you may remember from Casino Royale) does a fantastic job as Citron, it’s his counterpart, Flame, played by redheaded Danish actor Thure Lindhardt, that really carries the film. His consistency and depth was what brought this up from its amateur depths and into the spotlight. The two battle with inner emotions in addition to gun fights in a riveting story that I'm sure most Americans have never heard of. The two become national heroes fighting for their homeland until the allure of women disrupts the flow, as is often the case in almost any war story. Another Danish actress, Stine Stengade, takes on the role of the pivotal Ketty and also lives up to the deceptive levels of her character.

I do commend Madsen for his directorial work, as it was better than most independent war films, but it really needs to be trimmed down and tightened up. There were numerous scenes that reminded me of The Untouchables with their sheer beauty in violence and composition. It's hard to critique the more finer elements of this when I enjoyed it's combination of noir and war storytelling, but the clear issue was length. I was definitely surprised walking out by how much I enjoyed this and how different it was from any other WWII film I'd seen, which is more of a compliment than anything. I think it's safe to say that this could be a big Oscar contender for Denmark, but I'm not sure it's the strongest Danish film to date.

Telluride Rating: 7 out of 10

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Related categories: Opinions, Telluride Film Fest 08

martin

The danish contender for the 2009 Oscars, will be "Worlds apart".
Flemming Laursen

Well this is something you can read about in the Dansih WW2 resistance archives, this story is made on true accounts. So if you by Alex Billington think they just made is a bit "amateur aspects" just for fun, think again. Remember the Dogma movies ?? They did not made the movie just so Americans could watch 100Milliion go up in monster explotions like in T4. This is a movie about REAL PERSONS THAT LIVED AND DIE, so you now can sit on you butt and poke to a movie that in your eyes has "amateur aspects". Stuff like that have a purpuse in Danish films, if they use things that you can see the feber in peoples eyes just before they are going out on shootout on traitors and gestapo/nazis it might be the movie maker is trying you to get deep under their skin so you can see what lurks inside their heads. To your information, the director borrowed a lot of personal letters that the Flamme and Citron did sent to their friends and family to get deep inside the characters and open the box of personal matter. So ill give you an advice next time you are going in and see a movie that is like this get you personal data on the subjects correct beforehand. As far as my memory can reacall the true end goes like this : One in the end took a Cyancalium pill and died before they could get into the apartment he was in, the nazis got so furyous that the burned down the entire house. The other was killed like in the trailer. They gave the allies the backing so that you can sit peacefully today and talk English to your kids, if they failed you would have been speaking German BEst summer greetings from The culture capitol of Denmark ( is is not Cph ) Fl.