![]() And when they do get a survivor on board, both men make keeping young, illiterate orphan Aksel ( Leon Tobias Slettbakk) alive. They’re traumatized by survivors of other sinkings that they’re not allowed to stop long enough to pick up. He will “look after him and bring him home,” Sigbjørn vows (in Norwegian with subtitles, or dubbed into English).īut the nature of the service and Freddy’s unique gifts at managing the crew as a mate (and union steward) mean that he’s the one looking after engine-room mechanic Sigbjørn much of the time. Wife Cecilia gets Sigbjørn to make a promise about Freddy as they depart, pre-war. No letters got through, even though Freddy writes (and narrates) them from every ship they’re posted on, from every port of call. ![]() Nobody could tell how long this would last. “The fog of war” is never mentioned or referenced, but it’s here from the start as Vikane’s script accurately limits what every character and any civilian at that time knew and didn’t know. We also catch glimpses of life in occupied Norway as Freddy’s wife ( Ine Marie Wilmann, who played Sonja Henie in “Sonja: The White Swan”) and three children struggle on, without his income, bartering for food and trying to maintain some semblance of normality in the Laksevåg corner of suburban Bergen until their husband and father comes home. In brisk, claustrophobic and impressionistic strokes, Vikane takes us through almost everything such unsung heroes of the war experienced - homesickness to losing comrades, a sinking and a near sinking - traveling from New York to Britain, Malta to Halifax, Nova Scotia in U-Boat infested waters, facing air raids as well any time they approached German-occupied Europe. In three installments, he takes us from 1939, when friends Freddy ( Kristoffer Joner of “The Wave”) and Sigbjørn ( Pål Sverre Hagen of “Kon Tiki”) put to sea, all through the perils they faced as their country was occupied by the Germans and Norwegian sailors were pressed into service with the Allies for the duration. Writer-director Gunnar Vikane (“Trigger,” “Vegas”) expertly tells us a grim, reality-based, sometimes melodramatic story of the unique fate of sailors in the Norwegian merchant marine during the war. It’s a somber World War II sea saga of sorrow, sacrifice and everything that can go wrong when you sail your merchant ship repeatedly into harm’s way. “War Sailor (Krigsseileren)” is a Norwegian Tale of Two Sailors.
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