“At that time, it was allowed to hate Germans because of what happened,” says Zandvliet. Zandvliet’s film never glosses over Nazi crimes, but Land of Mine doesn’t let the Allies off either. 1 (1995): 17- 36 Gino Strada, 'The Horror of Land Mines,' Scientific. Just kids,” he remembers - did he shift the film’s focus to a brigade of conscripted boy prisoners. 24 George Witton, Scapegoats of the Empire: The True Story of Breaker Morant's. Only after he visited a cemetery of the war dead and saw how young the Germans who died in the clearances were - “15, 16, 17 years old. Now a new mining operation, 65 people and two. Empire shut down in 2011 due to the recession and became a ghost town until 2016. Empire, the abandoned mining town from 'Nomadland,' is a real-life place in the Nevada desert. But because the protagonist is about 11, it's a hard book to sell teenagers on. The town of Empire, Nevada a filming location for 'Nomadland' shut down in 2011 and was abandoned for years. Zandvliet initially had planned to tell the story of the mine clearances from the perspective of the Danish pioneer corps. War movies may be a dime a dozen, but rare is the film that depicts the anguish and retribution that linger in the aftermath of conflict and violence. Then she stands on a land mine and ends up a double amputee) is too mature for middle graders.
But during the course of the film, Carl grows to empathize with, and care for, “the enemy.” Initially, he is a virulent anti-German nationalist and sadistically abuses the boys under his charge. Carl Rasmussen (played by Roland Moller), a Danish commander in charge of a troop of German mine clearers.
Oscars: How 'Tanna' Helmers Helped Translate Pacific Islanders' Oral Traditions Onto Film Very Loosely Based on a True Story: As the closing titles note, some 2000 German prisoners were in fact employed (by the British, not the Danes) in clearing. It seems frightening that history repeats itself, that we don’t learn anything. I’ve basically stopped reading newspapers because I can’t believe it. “The film at its core is about not judging and hating people as groups, that we should see each other as individuals, which seems especially pertinent now, after the Trump election. Martin Zandvliets powerful, compassionate film part anti-war essay, part gripping thriller is based on a little-known true story and explores the grey. “I think it’s quite shocking that it almost mirrors society at the time,” says Land of Mine director Martin Zandvliet. But the film, which explores how a society judges and hates those considered to be enemies of the state, has gained contemporary relevance in the wake of the Trump election. Land of Mine, Denmark’s contender for the best foreign-language Oscar, is set in the 1940s, just after the horrors of World War II.