“Land of Mine” (“Under Sandet”) is a Danish-German historical drama from 2015, set in 1945, following the end of World War II and the liberation of Denmark from German occupation.
The story follows Sgt. Carl Rasmussen (Roland Møller) of the Danish military, as he takes charge of a squadron of young German conscripts imprisoned at the conclusion of armed conflict.
Shell-shocked and unsullied, the callow young men are assigned the daunting task of removing hundreds of thousands of land mines from the beaches of Denmark (originally planted by the Germans), literally crawling on their hands and knees to delicately extract the explosive charges. Rasmussen is initially driven to cruelty and callousness toward his young detainees, though the gradual affection he develops toward the innocuous youths serves well the emotional framework of the film.
Written and directed by Danish filmmaker Martin Zandvliet (“A Funny Man”, “Applause”), “Land of Mine” is a highly suspenseful cinematic experience, replete with genuine human drama and sequences of jarring, edge-of-your-seat thrills. A well-deserved Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film in 2017.
View the trailer: