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Flame and Citron |  | Director: Ole Chrstian Madsen
Actors: Thure Lindhardt, Mads Mikkelsen
Studio: MPI HOME VIDEO
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.98
Buy New: $10.49
as of 7/31/2010 12:26 MDT details
You Save: $9.49 (47%)
New (24) Used (5) from $9.20
Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 3637
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Languages: English (Subtitled), Danish (Original Language)
Rating: Unrated
Region: 1
Discs: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Running Time: 136 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: MPIDIFC9714D
UPC: 030306971490
EAN: 0030306971490
ASIN: B002U1LGSW
Release Date: February 23, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
Studio: Mpi Home Video Release Date: 02/23/2010 Rating: Nr
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 17
 The Danish Resistance February 19, 2010
Amos Lassen (Little Rock, Arkansas)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Flame and Citron"
The Danish Resistance
Amos Lassen
"Citron and Flame" is based on truth--a haunting tale of two second World War heroes of the Danish resistance. It is full of intrigue, beautifully photographed and grittily realistic. This is a war film but of a different nature. The war that we experience in this movie is dreamlike and claustrophobic--a world of lies, paranoia and violence that spirals out of control and threatens to erode morality and destroy sanity.
Mads Mikkelsen is Citron, a twitchy and sweaty bundle of nervous energy; Flame is Thure Lindhardt, his cool header partner. Together they are resistance fighters and assassins in occupied Denmark. They are on order to kill but they have a personal aim, to kill the leader of the local Gestapo unit. They are thwarted in this by politics, double crossing, self-preservation and a femme fatale. This makes them have to battle with their own as well as the enemy. There are also personal relationship problems and this gives the film a human touch.
Murder takes an emotional toil as we know and the motivation for it really doesn't matter. The film is set in Copenhagen in 1944 and the Nazi defeat is already evident. Flame seems to gain power by killing and soon grows reckless with the way he goes about it. The more he takes chances, the more Citron feels dread about the situation. At first they just kill men and eventually become capable of killing women. They even reach the point that Flame is so moved that he makes a small gesture of mercy toward a victim yet they are into murder very deeply and there is no way out. The S.S. knows who they are and has descriptions of what they look like. Flame and Citron kill a great many collaborators and the day comes when they kill a German officer and this makes the date of their death sentence come closer.
The production is beautiful; it looks like film noir and the sets, the costumes, the automobiles, guns, props etc are in keeping with the story. Ole Christian Madsen, the director, has done a brilliant job here.
"What else can one do?" May 25, 2010
J from NY (New York)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Ole Christian Madsen's "Flame and Citron" equals, to my mind, Melville's mind numbingly powerful "Army of Shadows"--something I had not honestly anticipated.
Flame (Bent Faurschou-Hviid) and Citron (Jørgen Haagen Schmith) were the action heroes of Denmark's Resistance to the Nazi Regime and having read about the two of them it is not too hard to understand why. Infamous for doing what most were both reluctant and terrified to do (actually shooting German soldiers and members of the SS in the street), it seems that it is less the effectiveness of the two men than their bravado and sheer physical courage which is so venerated. Though in the movie it is haphazardly implied that each had a plan for escape, these plans could have only been very vague. People were tortured and hung for a fraction of what they did and they managed to pull it off for two years. Both were killed in precisely the ways the film depicts in 1944. None other than President Harry Hiroshima Truman presented Flame with a very posthumous Medal of Freedom in 1951.
These two heroic and also terrifying individuals are played brilliantly by Thure Lindhardt (Flame, looking every bit Dostoevsky's Raskolnikvov) and Mads Mikkelsen (Citron, the actor's performance as this man tortured by his responsibilities to his family and his unwavering commitment to the Resistance is so powerful as to be frightening at times) are caught in a wretched web of lies and deception no more romantic than a Gothic novelist's version of Fabio going mad.
While we are given very little insight in the past of these two, it is obvious that Citron has something to prove about his manhood (the scene in which he tries to reconcile himself with his wife goes to show exactly how the impulse toward violence, however nobly conceived, indelibly stains the human psyche) and that Flame has paternal issues which often disable him from executing authoritative members of the Gestapo who see his youthful weakness and exploit it.
The irony is that their superiors talk about "liquidation" in precisely the same terms the Third Reich talked about "liquidation" in terms of massacring Jews. Madsen's obvious point is driven home with ruthless clarity: at what point does the righteous revolutionary become as bad as the tyrants they rabidly pursue? Why did these two take little interest in sabotage, perhaps hiding Jews or saving them? The answer may be that since they had no foreknowledge of the Allies winning the war they saw what they were doing as the only possible means: getting rid of the German army and all collaborators one by one before they take over the world? That is far too simple, and the answer is infinitely more complex and ominous.
That old edict, "violence begets violence", is in the end a truth they learn far too late. The twist in the film which reveals that they have been badly misguided as to who they have been assassinating and leaves nothing for them but horrendous guilt and yet a determination to act on their own. It seemed pretty obvious to me who was betraying them from the moment the person was introduced into the film, but Flame probably figured he wanted to live as a normal man and not just an assassin at least in one area of his life. Whatever one's quabbles about their methods, one cannot help but admire the way they go out, just as they lived. A movie which is a meditation on conscience in a time where right and wrong were discarded like cheap deck of Uno cards. A masterpiece.
A Well-Told Tale and Tense Drama March 1, 2010
Whyaduc (Washington, DC)
My wife and I both loved this movie. The story is set in Nazi occupies Denmark. Flame and Citron are partners in the resistance. There are few similarities between them. Flame is younger, comes from a wealthy family where Citron has been a poor husband and father...apparently a loser. His wife leaves him and he faces the mess that his life has been. The film succeeds with us at many levels. The cinematography was amazing. Each scene was well-composed, the lighting and colors were all stunning. There is violence but it is not spectacular violence for the sake of violence.
The characters are well developed and interesting. As the story unwinds you see human behavior in an occupied country. Some cooperate with their oppressors (the Danish Nazis), some resist, as Flame and Citron did and some stay in the middle trying just to survive...moving to one side or the other depending on who the likely victor is. One of the keys to this drama is the treachery of many of the Danes. The people in the ristance never knew whom the trust. The Gestapo was accurately portrayed as they work in the community to gather information and extend their tentacles in order to control people. This is an excellent drama more out of the 1940's and 1950's vintage, not an action-adventure spectacle
UK Import, Region Free July 28, 2009
Rob (VA)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
This Blu Ray is an import from the UK but it is region all and will play on all US players. However, the extras are in PAL format and will not play on most players.
If you wish to save some money (and get the movie before the US "release date") you should order it from Amazon UK.
Thoroughly enjoyable... December 10, 2009
Electrifier (FL)
19 out of 19 found this review helpful
In German and Danish language with English subtitles. Based
on actual events.
In 1942, during WWII, a group of resistance fighters were
formed in Copenhagen, Denmark and named "Holger Danske";
a group which liquidated traitors and at the same time
attempted to avoid intervention by the Germans. Two of
the group's most famous members were Jorgen Haagen Scmith
"Citron" and Bent Faurschou-Hviid "Flame" whom the Germans
eventually sought out for the death of several Nazis.
"Flame and Citron" is a Danish produced drama and the most
expensive film made in Denmark thus far. It is directed adeptly
and really captures the essence of Denmark and what it must
have been like during Nazi occupation. The content is taken
very seriously with little in the way of hyperbole and the
actors portray their characters with stark realism. The pacing
is done very well and maintains ones interest until the very
end. The scripting is also handled very well in this wholly
political drama, so much in fact that you don't want to miss
any important dialogue, which is a majority of the film.
Being a part of the "Holger Danske" meant living one's life
on the edge and made maintaining a relationship virtually
impossible. The group was twice infiltrated by the Gestapo
resulting in the death of 64 of its members. "Flame" and
"Citron" however are steadfast in their fight for the democratic
state of their country amidst the Communists and Fascists.
Thier loyalty to Denmark is unwaivering, however, they eventually
find out that all is not what it seems - deceit and confusion
are rampant in war and they quickly realize that they are no
excpetion to these rules.
A impressively done war film well worth the rental price and
the purchase price for WWII enthusiasts.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 17
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