By Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
The 2022 movie “War Sailor” (original title: Krigsseileren) is now available on Netflix as a three-part mini-series. It follows the trials of two Norwegian friends who set out to sail to make money but are trapped in the ocean life for several years due to World War II.
Directed and written by Gunnar Vikene, the show is a riveting look at the lives of lower-income men who chose sailing to support their families but are instead swept up in the grand, brutal world politics of war and death. Kristoffer Jonar plays the protagonist Alfred, a married man with three little children, who does odd jobs to make ends meet. His best friend Sigbjørn (Pål Sverre Hagen) convinces Kristoffer to work with ships for steady money, and the two of them find themselves on a life-changing, traumatic journey.
“War Sailor” is rife with scenes that tragically juxtapose the gloom and doom of war against the efforts of civilians to establish some sort of normalcy while bombs, blood, and death bells surround them. There’s a scene where a group of sailors are huddled in a bunker, taking shelter from bombings when they realize the youngest in their crew has turned 16. Despite their desperate circumstances, they start to sing “Happy Birthday” to him in English, slowly uplifting the desolate mood. But before they can finish their song, a loud explosion jolts them. That scene, of a blast ripping through a sweet moment, made my heart jump to my throat!
The first two episodes are gripping. Kristoffer Jonar and Pål Sverre Hagen win your heart as friends who stay by each other’s side through thick and thin. Child actor Henrikke Lund Olsen stands out in her small cameo as Alfred’s eldest daughter Magdeli, especially in a scene where she wails and raises hell against her father’s decision to go sailing because she thinks the family will never see him again.
The finale was slightly disjointed from the first half, and the pace also slows down, with the themes drastically shifting. From starting off as a war film shedding light on the power of human bonds, it suddenly becomes a little domestic and finally ends with a climax that tries to express the irreparable psychological toll of war. In one scene, Alfred screams, “I am alive! I am alive,” not out of joy but out of complete wretchedness because, despite surviving bullets, bombs, torpedoes, and nearly drowning, it feels like he is dead.
It’s a 8 on 10 from me.
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