A version of this “War Sailor” story was first published in the question of international cinema from TheWrap Awards Magazine.
“War Sailor,” the most expensive Norwegian film ever made with a budget of $11 million, tells the story of Norway’s involvement in World War II through the eyes of a sailor (Kristoffer Joner) who is recruited to join the Allied war effort and shattered. from his experience at sea.
Writer-director Gunnar Vikene, 56, drew on stories he heard as a child among his parents’ generation. The result is a war film that is both epic and intimate, detailing the horrors of war and its long-term consequences, topics Gunner discussed during a conversation with TheWrap. The film is Norway’s official selection for the Oscar for Best International Film.
Why was telling it on screen an important part of the story for you?
The story of the Norwegian sailors, to my knowledge, has never been told in a movie like this. They were absolutely vital to the war effort and victory. While I was growing up in the 1970s, many homeless people in Norway were former sailors. I come from the working class and it struck me that the perspective of the working class had not been said. So I collected stories about the war for years and years. I remember a man who worked with my father, and this man was self-medicating with alcohol. My dad told me: “he was torpedoed twice during the war”.
What were your goals in telling this story?
Well, there are films in Norway that have been made about this historical period, but some of them have an undercurrent of nationalism which I don’t like. And so the story continues long after the war is over. The last scene is set in 1972 and is inspired by the grandson of one of the sailors, who told me that in the last years of his grandfather’s life, his grandfather used to say: “It’s not the torpedoing that gives me nightmares, it’s all what might have been but never was.” The final scene features the sailors as older men, and when they visit each other, they just can’t talk. That was the first scene I wrote. And then I wrote the first draft in a month and a half.
Also, in 2015, during the war in Syria, my daughter was 12 years old at the time and she saw the civilians on TV. There was a picture of a boy in the ambulance, six or seven years old, and covered in dust. And my daughter said, “I’m so glad we live in a country that doesn’t experience that.” And she just had to point out the window and show him that part of this city in Norway was razed to the ground. My mother’s second cousins were at that school that day when it was bombed. I said, “We’ve experienced that.” And we had a discussion about how we can help refugees today.
The film also shows the effect on children, both as civilians and as soldiers.
Yes, that was important to represent. People do not know how many children were on board these ships. We send them out there. The youngest who died on board were 14 years old. How can we understand the brutality that is demanded of them, of their psyche?
After one of the ships torpedoes and sinks, there is a long sequence on board a floating raft, as the sailors fight to survive. How did you film that?
We were supposed to shoot that in the big water tank in Malta, where a lot of movies are shot, but after visiting it we thought, “Let’s do it in the open sea.” So it was all at sea, no studio work. I didn’t want to feel any CGI in the scene. And I really like having it on camera, but it was very challenging. The raft was so small that there was no space apart from the actors and the cinematographer. And it was hard to go too far to see, where you couldn’t see land anymore, because the waves were too strong.
Its lead actor, Kristoffer Joner, has an amazing sad face for this role. Did you have it in mind when you were writing the paper?
Well, I often do. I made my first feature film with him (2002’s Falling Sky) and he has been my friend for over 20 years. When I wrote this script, I knew it would be very physically and mentally demanding on the actor. So I was a little afraid that this would affect the friendship between me and Kristoffer. But it worked. I think he’s in a class by himself. He worked very hard for it. He is very powerful.
The film also shows the cost of miscommunication, in which people were given false information about the fate of their loved ones.
It happened a lot. Our ambition was to make not just a war movie, but a movie about the aftermath of war. And when it comes to false reports, that happened many times. One of the saddest moments was when a ship sank and a sailor was reported dead, then reported alive in a Japanese camp, then reported dead again. That happened a lot. One woman told me that she was four years old when her father, who had been pronounced dead, appeared at the door.
Some of the stories they told me were so hard to listen to. At a recent screening I met a girl from the Ukraine who came to see me and was very affected by the film. She asked me, “Do you think the scars of the war will ever go away?” She really wanted him to say yes, but what could she say?
How do you think the characters in your film might answer that question?
For some who returned home, they apparently ran their lives. I’ve met some veterans who said, “I put the experience in a box and left it behind.” But who can predict how someone will react? I believe the truth remains about what war does to humans: it takes away their humanity and their potential.
Read more from the International Cinema edition here.
