The 12th Man ★★★½
WORLD War II continues to provide film material 77 years on.
While some stories from the period are well known, there are an equal number of stories of courage and sacrifice you may never have heard of.
One of those may be that portrayed in The 12th Man, a 2017 Norwegian drama.
The story of Jan Baalsrud was actually told previously on screen in 1957 but it’s new to me.
film directed by Harald Zwart, starring Thomas Gullestad as
Jan Baalsrud, who escapes from occupying Nazi Germans to neutral Sweden in the spring of 1943. The film, based on historical events, was adapted from the book Jan Baalsrud and Those Who Saved Him (2001) by Tore Haug and Astrid Karlsen Scott.[3]
Like the book, The 12th Man emphasizes the efforts of those who helped Baalsrud escape, which is in line with Baalsrud’s own statements about the local population’s courage. The plot also details the pursuit of Baalsrud from the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) leadership’s perspective, depicting the escape as a cat-and-mouse game between Sturmbannführer Kurt Stage and Baalsrud.
In 1943 Aligned Norway was trying to fight the occupying German forces with limited resources and men.
Baalsrud was one of 12 Norwegian resistance fighters training in England for a secret sabotage mission.
They boarded an explosives-laden fishing vessel and crossed the North Sea as part of Operation Martin.
But the mission is thwarted almost immediately on arrival in Norway due to information from a local German sympathiser.
All the team except Baalsrud are captured along with some information on the mission. Baalsrud must evade the searching Germans and battle severe weather conditions in order to escape detection and return to England.
The story of survival and heroism is about the local people who helped Baalsrud, under constant threat of death, as much as the resilience and ingenuity of the man himself.
Lead actor Thomas Gullestad does a good job of portraying both the mental and physical strength that was required while Brit Jonathan Rhys-Meyers plays the ruthlessly determined German officer Kurt Stage who faces potential punishment from his own side for allowing one man to outwit the might of Germany.
Apparently there is some debate over the details of what actually occurred, but you can look that up for yourself.
Director Harald Zwart is a journeyman film-maker who has previously tackled a range of different genres including sci-fi and comedy.
Here he does a good job of throwing audiences into the drama of the severe weather conditions, challenging terrain and constant threat surrounding Baalsrud’s fight to evade capture over many months.
Another solid WWII drama from Norway.