Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Bombardment’ on Netflix, A Movie About The Accidental Bombing Of A Danish School During WWII

Written and directed by Ole Bornedal (Nightwatch), The Bombardment (Netflix) revists a tragic episode in the wartime history of Denmark, when a 1945 Royal Air Force bombing operation caused significant loss of civilian lives, many of them children. The disaster to come materializes slowly as Bornedal introduces the various individuals whose fates will align as the bombs fall.

THE BOMBARDMENT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: 1945. The Second World War is coming to an end, but Denmark remains under German military occupation. In Copenhagen, everyday life continues with relative normalcy. Shops are open, people go to work, and children attend school. But the Gestapo still aggressively hunts for members of the resistance movement, with assistance from homegrown Danes in the HIPO auxiliary police force. Frederik (Alex Hogh Andersen) is disowned by his father for joining up – “What of my son? He became a HIPO pig, a traitor” – and there’s violence in the streets as the Gestapo, HIPO thugs, and resistance fighters battle each other. Children witness all of this, walking with their parents or the nuns who operate their French school. Eva (Ella Josephine Lund Nilsson) and her friend Rigmor (Ester Birch) aren’t desensitized to it, nor are they traumatized. They’ve pivoted to life during wartime.

In Jutland, Henry (Bertram Bisgaard Enevoldsen) is riding his bike when a RAF Mosquito fighter-bomber strafes a local taxi it mistook for a German staff car; traumatized by the resulting carnage, he’s rendered mute. His mother packs him off to her sister, Rigmor’s mother, who lives in Copenhagen. “Not a lot of blue skies there, and he fears sky the most.” 

Meanwhile, at Fersfield Airbase in England, there’s a new mission afoot. Operation Carthage will target the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen, located inside a historic downtown building known as the Shellhus. “Our aim is to destroy their archives and kill as many Huns as possible,” the briefing officer tells the pilots. This is despite the Germans having placed resistance prisoners near the roof as human shields. The RAF and their allies in the Danish underground will sacrifice a few to save many.

At Jeanne d’Arc School, Sister Teresa (Fanny Bornedal) teaches Rigmor, Henry, Eva and their classmates that time is different for God, and a single day may feel the same as 100 years. Still, the ugly mayhem of war has made Teresa question her faith. She flogs herself in private, and tries to provoke a reaction from the Lord by brazenly kissing Frederik.

Three squadrons of de Havillands take off from Norwich and scream across the surface of the English Channel armed with delayed fuse bombs. They’ll skim the rooftops of the city on their approach to the target. The first squadron’s bombs hit Shellhus, crushing the Gestapo presence in Copenhagen. But a clipped observation tower sends one plane hurtling out of control. It slams into the French school and explodes, confusing the next wave of bombers, and tragedy strikes as their bombs fall on innocent schoolchildren.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Writer and director Ole Bornedal’s emphasis on the perspective of children toward war places The Bombardment in a string of films that includes Cate Shortland’s Lore, Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun, featuring a young Christian Bale, and Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful.

Performance Worth Watching: Fanny Bornedal, who also appeared in Bornedal’s recent historical TV series 1864, fuels Sister Teresa with a compelling blend of devotion – to the Lord and to her young charges – curiosity, and a few courageous acts of brazen autonomy.

Memorable Dialogue: “If you don’t find the Lord, you will burn,” Teresa tells Frederik after witnessing his beatdown of a resistance member. He says it’s too late – now that the war is ending, his membership in HIPO will be revealed, and he’ll be doomed. Suddenly, she kisses him. “If I kiss someone like you, God will surely punish me. Then I’ll know he exists.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: The Bombardment is certainly sensitive to the particular moods it builds for some of its wide sampling of characters. It dwells on Henry as a gentle soul scarred too early in life by a terrible event of war, and that attention pays off when he’s able to lend his voice and aid to an even more traumatizing event. The ebullience of Henry’s cousin Rigmor is uplifting even in the face of Copenhagen’s difficult Nazi oppression, and her playful interpretation of Sister Teresa’s teachings becomes the film’s emotional hinge as the RAF bombing run looms. “Mom and dad are nice, because they say the war is over soon. Which is lucky, because God just stepped out to buy some cigarettes.” And Teresa’s own crisis of faith is upheld best through the interpretation of Fanny Bornedal, who conveys the nun’s questioning and turmoil mostly through subtle shifts in her eyes. Where Bombardment falters is in carrying that sensitivity through completely. There are too many strings here, and not enough time for them all. Members of the resistance remain nameless even as they’re tortured and propped up as human shields by the Gestapo; we understand their plight only as a sketch. Frederik’s overnight disillusionment with his HIPO thuggery is too heavy handed. And the RAF pilots, also largely nameless, are as one dimensional as the time delay bombs their de Havillands drop.

While its scope is perhaps too broad, The Bombardment does succeed in its look and feel in the rendering of war. The bomber squadron’s approach and attack run is accompanied by a teriffically tense soundtrack full of churning cello and feedback guitar, and the planes’ raw power as brutal tools of war is arresting. And when the time comes, the film doesn’t shy away from representing the awfulness of civilian casualties. Parents drop everything and rush as a group through the streets, the burning wreckage of their childrens’ school in the distance. And everyday citizens become members of the rescue team as rubble is torn away to free the broken bodies of kids. They could be images from anywhere in the long history of wartime tragedy.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Bombardment is a little unwieldy, but it’s reverential to its tragic central subject and buoyed by the work of some fine young actors.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges