Year Released: 2018
Directed by: Harald Zwart
Starring: Thomas Gullestad, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Marie Blokhus, Mads Sjogard Pettersen
(18 Years Plus, 131 min.)
Genre: Thomas Gullestad, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Marie Blokhus, Mads Sjogard Pettersen

“There are supposed to be twelve. Where is the twelfth man?” Kurt Stage, Head of the Gestapo in Norway

Add this epic war adventure to your list of World War II classics. Norway’s version of Saving Private Ryan is top rate and one you will not soon forget.

They were 12 saboteurs. The Nazis killed 11 of them. This is the true story of the one who got away...

After a failed anti-Nazi sabotage mission leaves his 11 comrades dead, Norwegian resistance fighter Jan Baalsrud (Thomas Gullestad) finds himself fleeing from the Gestapo through the snowbound reaches of Scandinavia.

You will freeze with him as you witness the understated courage and fortitude of Norwegians who help him.

From the outset the race is against the cold as well as the relentless Gestapo officer who pursues Jan. Which, we wonder, is more ruthless.

The water was below freezing. And the ocean there, you know...It is deep and wide. And he was injured. He was bleeding…

Those frigid conditions mean nothing to Kurt Stage (a brilliant Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who has never lost a potential prisoner.

A man can easily survive twenty minutes in ice water. He may experience hypothermia, but his heart will be beating. He will be able to move. His brain will still function. And that means the twelfth man is not dead.

The obsessed Gestapo officer even tests this premise with certain prisoners, herding them into the frigid waters to see how long they can last and still function. But owing to their poor treatment (under his direction) they are too frail to make a valid test, so Kurt Stage wades into the water himself. He is nothing if not thorough!

***

Different drummer laments much that has changed in the film industry, but one positive is being freed from the scourge of professional child actors. In fact, many of the films today are peopled by excellent children in lead roles, i.e. Asa Butterfield from The Boy in the Striped Pajamas as well as Hugo, Saoirse Ronan in Atonement, or Bill Miler and Will Pouter in the wonderful but hardly known Son of Rambow to name a few examples.

In The 12th Man we have Margareth (Tiril Holth Harnang) and her brief but meaningful encounter with Jan. The young daughter of a farm family that helps him, Margareth impresses the former cartographer with her knowledge of geography. Jan recounts to her his past adventures around the world after fleeing Norway after “they no longer allowed me to draw maps.” Since then he has covered almost the whole globe – “Sweden, Russia, the Ukraine, Turkey, India, Kenya and South Africa, Brazil, Trinidad, the United States and Canada, England and the Island of Shetland.”

Margareth notes he has missed Australia.

“A bookworm. She loves geography. Farm work, not so much,” her father says.

In their final conversation Jan asks Margaret to make him a map of how to get to Sweden, safe because it “neutral” in the war. Her map is obviously made by a child – Margaret even signs her name to it in proud ownership – but it is very accurate. Later Jan folds it into a pocket but only after tearing off her name should it fall into enemy hands.

And the enemy is a constant, sweeping through the local farms in pursuit of him, especially since having a saboteur against the Nazis still free is giving the occupied Norwegians a rallying symbol.

He hides or is hidden by so many local country folk since Jan’s is rapidly deteriorating due to semi-starvation, immersion in icy waters, blizzards, and an injured foot that gets worse by the day. He is asleep or delirious much of the time, whether it be in a barn loft, a small ship, a row boat, under a large rock, inside a cave, or hunkered down in a remote hunting cabin that he declares “better than London’s Savoy Hotel” in a rare lucid moment.

Waiting for the opportune time to flee, Jan has a lot of time on his hands. Time to impress and win the devotion of Gudrun (Marie Blokhus), the farm girl who nurses him, with tales of a romantic, adventuresome past. In his fevered dreams he tells Gudrun all about India, its exotic elephants and birds, and dancing in London. The locals have never met such a sophisticate, and thus his code name becomes “Gentleman.”

Certain poignant scenes stand out, such as the burly man who carries Jan to shore on his shoulders so he will not get wet, and then insisting that Jan take his only skis. Those moments in the cabin when Jan finds the only way to end the throbbing of his blackened toes. Or maybe the avalanche that chases him downhill on those skis given to him.

But the standout scene is his great escape across the Swedish border tethered to a reindeer. The local Norwegian Resistance member assures him;

I’ll go ahead and steer the herd in the right direction. We’ll give you our strongest animal. One that knows the route well. It won’t give up until you’re across.

At that point Jan is a hollowed out man, mentally and physically, and he really looks the part, almost like a madman.

Gullestad, who reportedly lost more than 30 pounds within eight weeks to convey his character’s hardships, runs a thespian gamut of physical and psychological extremity with nuanced skill. It’s all the more impressive a turn given that this is his first major acting role; until now he’s been primarily a Norwegian TV personality and member of pop hip-hop group Klovner i Kamp. –Dennis Harvey

Very impressive on all counts, perhaps reminding us of the excellent Christian Bale in The Fighter and Rescue Dawn.

This 2018 film is a must see. It is a sprig of green hope that modern cinema can still produce great films – even if or maybe because it was not produced by Hollywood.

–Kathy Borich
🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁

Trailer

Film-Loving Foodie

Just when Jan is at his lowest, suffering from the cold, his injured foot, semi -delirious and almost starving to death, he gets a visitor to the frigid cave where they are hiding him.

Like so many who helped him, this visitor is someone Jan has never seen before. He arrives with good cheer and a special cake. Each of those helping him has contributed something to the little sliver of hope that they bestow upon him.

The visitor tells him how they all made this Traditional Norwegian Cream Cake – Bløtkake:

Today is a special day.
Happy Constitution Day.
Hooray for Norway.
May 17.
And no aquavit? (Norwegian version of French Cognac)
The eggs are from Olaf.
And the syrup is from Ludvig.
The cream is from Peder, even though the Germans have raided his place four times lately.
And Signe baked it.
Their eight-year old made the flag for you.
Happy 17th of May, Jan.
God bless our dear fatherland.

Håper det smaker.

Bløtkake (Norwegian Cream Cake)

Traditional Norwegian Cream Cake - Bløtkake - a delicious sponge layer cake filled with pudding and peaches and cream, topped with whipped cream, blueberries and strawberries.

Ingredients

*Cake

6 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 1/4 cup flour

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

* If you like, you can buy a sponge cake instead.

Filling

• 1 box vanilla pudding

• 1 cup milk

• 16 oz. peaches, canned

• 1 pint whipping cream

• 1 T sugar

• 1 quart fresh strawberries

• 1 pint blueberries

Instructions

1 Preheat the oven to 325 F and grease and flour a spring form pan.

2 Beat the eggs and the sugar on high speed until light and frothy. They should be light yellow and a little bubbly.

3 Mix the flour and baking soda together. Sift the mixture about 1/3 at a time over the egg mixture and fold together with a spatula. Don't over mix! Fold until the batter is no longer streaked with flour.

4 Pour the mixture into the spring form pan and bake for about 35 minutes, until the center is firm.

5 Cool completely before removing the sides of the spring form pan.

6 While it is cooling make the pudding with only 1 cup of milk, instead of the two called for on the box. It will be very thick! Let the pudding cool.

7 Once the cake is cool cut it into 3 more or less equal layers. A wire cake lever is very useful for this, without a leveler I usually just make it a two layer cake.

8 Put each of the three layers of the cake on separate plates. Drizzle with the juice from the peach can. Use up all the juice.

9 Mix about 2/3 of the peaches in the can with the cooled pudding, and crush with a fork. Use the mixture to top one of the layers.

10 Whip the cream with 1 Tablespoon of sugar until soft peaks form.

11 Crush 2/3 of the strawberries and mix with 1/3 of the whipped cream. Use this mixture to top another cake layer.

12 Stack the cake layers together with the peach layer on the bottom. Frost the cake with the remainder of the whipped cream, and decorate with the remaining strawberries and blueberries, or whatever fruit you prefer.

13 Store in the refrigerator.

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