Flame and Citron for Corrie Film Club

This dark thriller may come over as pure John Le Carré, but it is based on fact. Denmark was occupied by the Nazi forces from April 1940 until VE Day in May 1945, and the Resistance was far more complicated, both politically and morally, than a mere Robin Hood exercise of knocking off the Sheriff’s men.

Ole Christian Madsen’s 2008 film is based on fact. ‘Flame’ is the code-name for a red-haired young man called Bent, and calm, bespectacled Jørgen is known as ‘Citron’, as sharp and dry as a lemon. (He is played by Mads Mikkelsen, who may be remembered as Le Chiffre in Casino Royale.) These two were in real life the chief assassins of the Resistance, but relationships between Denmark and Germany were always complex, and there was no clarity about where the loyalties lay. The film, set in 1944 when the tide of the war was turning, sees that liberation is coming closer. The increasingly desperate Gestapo is tightening the screws, and the Danish civilian government has been replaced by martial law, whose leading Establishment deals in negotiation rather than murder. Its leaders increasingly see Flame and Citron as loose cannons whose usefulness is at an end, and the two killers do not know who, if anyone, can be trusted. This intelligent, gripping film has much to say about morality and the tensions that still beset much of the world.

The screening starts at 8.00pm in Corrie Hall on Sunday, May 12th. Admission is free, and you need not be a Film Club member, though donations to the hall’s costs are always welcomed.