While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Blistering performances.

A war film. but you know. scene by scene. than it is more. it is a film about deep reality. in its essential traits. cruelty and death and less hope and a sort of parenthood/friendship. and the victims. it is different for each detail. from beach and sky and faces and fingers of boys and the stolen food and the presence of dog and dialogues. and the truth as a confession. not history lesson, not pledge, not demonstration of guilty. only gestures and words and fury and fear and hate. they and us. like in each period of history. a film who could be touching. or admirable work. or splendid support to reflect. about realities, past and the essence defining humankind. a special film. because it has all the virtues. to be an experience. painfull. but profound usefull. for define the significant things defining people. after each of wars.

Not only was this right up my street it was one of the best films I have seen this year. Nominated at the Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year this is the story of a group of young German soldiers held as prisoners at the end of the war , who are ordered to dig up and disarm all of the Nazi land mines remaining on the west coast of Denmark. A Danish sergeant watches over the effort as the untrained soldiers attempt to complete their extremely dangerous punishment. It's probably not the best description to describe what I felt about this film but I really was was blown away. I has no idea about this part of World war II history and that the Germans planted over 1.2 million mines because they though the allies would land via Denmark and not France. This is beautifully written and filmed by Director Pieter Zandvliet and the acting from the group of young German actors is stunning. Sometimes moments of silence says more than words can and the silent moments say everything in this film wether it be when they are unarming the mines or when they are in fear of the sergeant. It's a very sad story that I'm sure the Danes are not proud of but I'm so glad it was told with such expertise.

Land of Mine is a very pleasant surprise. Essentially it is the story of a group of 14 teenagers ( I would guess between 13-16 years old), who were obviously conscripted to fight for the German army in a war that was already doomed. When they thought that once the conflict was over, they would be allowed to come home, but they forgot about the collective punishment season.I just watched this drama based on real events and got the feeling of how awful it is to be on the losing side of a war. Many people remember fondly victory parades, surrender declarations and peace agreements. This movie show us that cruelty, violence, desperation and misery didn't end in 1945. The horrors continued for many years, in this case, the German army demobilized without retreating to their home country, so hundreds of thousands soldiers were trapped in Denmark, and the local population and military was just eager to take some revenge. Normally we associate cruelty against POWs with the Soviet Union (a country that essentially killed all their prisoners in their concentration camps in Siberia), but "land of mine" portraits the western armies almost as ruthless as the Russians were.So the story of these 14 kids is that they are assigned suicide missions: they are supposed to clear giant minefields along the Danish coast, and if they don't die in the explosions, the other form of killing them was trough starvation and medical neglect. Essentially they had nothing to lose, but still, in the middle of such a hopeless life, they would cling to their humanity. Some would dream about coming home, seeing their mothers once again, while others were more realistic and understood that they were already dead, and there was no reason to be optimistic.They are led by Sargeant Rasmussen, a sadistic Danish Officer, who starts to feel lonely, and slowly start feeling some compassion about the boys, who are essentially paying for mistakes from the previous generations. Because one day he let them eat some bread, his superiors threaten him and go to the barracks in order to abuse them, reminding the sergeant that they are not people, but just disposable bodies who are useful to their task.I won't tell the end, but I recommend this movie because it is a history lesson and a lesson of humanity. Despite having politicians declaring war against each other, the ordinary people that supply soldiers for every army are just normal and enemies have a lot of common with each other (there is a scene in the movie that the sergeant even allow himself to enjoy some moments of pleasure playing soccer with his captives), so we shouldn't feel any pleasure when killing civilians or unarmed prisoners in any war, because they are human beings just like us.

This movie certainly deserved its Oscar nomination.Rarely do movie stick with me for days. 'Land of mine' did.It's not an action-movie, like 'Dunkirk' or other movies set in and around World War 2. It's an important character study about humanity, desperation, resentment, anger, prejudice and hate that I think everyone need to see, even if they have no interest in World War 2. There are no good or bad guys here. Just people that try to deal with difficult situations commanded by other people above them. They should make more movies like this.