This 1960 drama by Arne Skouen, who made the Oscar nominated Nine Lives (1957), takes us to war time Oslo. A young man is sent from London to Oslo to become a radio operator for the resistance. He hides out at a birth clinic and runs the radio from the attic of the clinic. The man he was sent to replace, however, refuses to leave Oslo because he has made a girl pregnant. The gestapo knows this, yet the resistance man risks the safety of the whole resistance network to be able to see his child.
This film is not nearly as good as Nine Lives. My objection to it comes from the fact that the resistance fighters act irrationally when it comes to this issue of fatherhood. This film is really about resisting the Germans and the reasons for doing so represented by the birth clinic and the children. However, this theme seems to make the resistance fighters annoyingly sentimental about fatherhood. It also takes away some of the cynicism which is necessary for running an underground network. This film is a far cry from Melville's L'armée des ombres (1969).
But the film is quite enjoyable even so. The title, "Omringet", translates as "Surrounded".
This film is not nearly as good as Nine Lives. My objection to it comes from the fact that the resistance fighters act irrationally when it comes to this issue of fatherhood. This film is really about resisting the Germans and the reasons for doing so represented by the birth clinic and the children. However, this theme seems to make the resistance fighters annoyingly sentimental about fatherhood. It also takes away some of the cynicism which is necessary for running an underground network. This film is a far cry from Melville's L'armée des ombres (1969).
But the film is quite enjoyable even so. The title, "Omringet", translates as "Surrounded".
