7.5 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.2 |
Follows a young adventurer who is involved in liberating Nazi-occupied Norway.
Starring: Aksel Hennie, Agnes Kittelsen, Nicolai Cleve Broch, Ken Duken, Christian RubeckWar | 100% |
Drama | 82% |
History | 80% |
Biography | 36% |
Foreign | 33% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Norwegian: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
If you mention the Resistance with regard to World War II, chances are most people almost automatically default to thinking about the French. And yet why should that be so, especially when one considers the rather infamous collaborationist history of the Vichy government? In fact almost all of the nations swarmed over and eventually conquered by the Nazis had their own Resistance movements, and many of them achieved rather considerable success. It’s equally strange that most people tend not to think of the Scandinavian countries much, if at all, within the broader context of the War generally, but of course Hitler set his sights North relatively early in his nefarious career, and Norway and Denmark soon came under Nazi rule. Sweden managed to maintain an ostensible neutrality, though it traded freely with the Nazis and had immense deposits of precious metals which were necessary for the Nazi war machine and provided a certain kind of insurance policy for the Swedes. The Finnish situation was a bit more complex. The Finns had already been involved in a lengthy and not especially well resolved conflict with the Soviet Union, which has supposedly ended with a peace treaty which nonetheless forced the Finns to cede almost ten percent of their country’s territory. Perhaps deciding that the enemy of their enemy was their friend, when the pact between the Nazis and the Soviets was reneged upon by Hitler, the Finns jumped over into an official allied position with the Nazis, and their country was soon overrun by hordes of German soldiers. Though the bulk of Max Manus: Man of War deals with the Norwegian Resistance, the film actually starts off with a brief sequence (which recurs in a series of frightening flashbacks) of Max fighting in the Winter War between the Soviets and the Finns, where he had volunteered to lend his services. The dichotomy of seeing gorgeous snowcapped fields suddenly turn bloody with the spoils of war helps to immediately establish the ambiguity with which this film flirts rather artfully. Though Max Manus was a real-life war hero who sometimes single handedly helped forge Norwegian national unity with a series of daring raids and sabotage missions, he was also deeply, deeply scarred by the traumas he experienced, including seeing several of his closest friends ruthlessly murdered at the hands of the Nazis. It is that dialectic which provides Max Manus: Man of War with the emotional tension it forges, above and beyond its traditional wartime setting and heroics.
Max Manus: Man of War blasts onto Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. As noted above, this is really an unsually picturesque war film, with gorgeous location footage and some artfully handled CGI and matte work that really opens the film up. Production design is exceptional as well, and the entire film looks beautifully sharp and well detailed almost all of the time. A number of the Norwegian sequences are filtered (appropriately) toward the ice cool blue end of the spectrum, and while that would normally include some contrast issues, that actually isn't the case here. A lot of this film plays outdoors, and depth of field is stunning at times. Fine detail is abundant and pleasing throughout. In fact the only niggling complaint is some transitory aliasing which crops up on some of the vintage car grilles and the like.
Max Manus: Man of War is presented with an incredibly robust lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Norwegian track (with the Scottish sequence in English). This is a beautifully rendered track chock full of immersive moments. The opening battle sequence gives the listener a bristling array of bullets whizzing through the soundfield, and then later when Max meets the guys who will become the core of the resistance movement, listen to the incredible pan of the low flying German plane overhead. The film rarely lets up in its sonic ingenuity, ably matching tenser, quieter moments with the more over the top action sequences. In fact, some of the most effective moments are those quieter moments. Beautifully placed foley effects like a paddle hitting the water in the dock sabotage scene help to create ambience almost magically. Dialogue is crisp and clear, and the penetrative use of LFE assaults the ears with some incredible low register vibrations.
Prior to having seen this film, about the only thing I could tell you about Norway and World War II was the name Quisling. Now after having watched Max Manus: Man of War I realize that there is obviously so much more to find out. This is an exciting and brilliantly produced film which captures both the crazy quilt heroics of a band of civilian guerrillas as well as the heartbreak that war often brings to its combatants. Epic in scope and yet completely intimate and personal in its actual story, Max Manus: Man of War is certainly one of the best World War II films in recent memory, and the fact that it is so while offering us a really unusual setting just makes it all the more Highly recommended.
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