‘Flame and Citron’ *** 1/2
“Flame & Citron” is an old-fashioned vehicle beautifully restored and revitalized for the modern age. Its focus on the heroic behavior of a pair of Danish anti-Nazi resistance fighters may sound traditional, but what’s different here, it gradually becomes clear, is that events are taking place in a compromised moral universe of uncertainty and terror. Venality and calculation, it turns out, do not disappear from the human equation just because a cause is just, and being idealistic might do no more than set you up for being manipulated and misled. Or maybe not. It’s almost impossible to tell, and that’s the whole point.
“Flame & Citron” opens in Copenhagen in 1944 as an unnamed narrator talks about the demoralizing days of the German invasion four years earlier and reacts with cool disgust at how the Danes who backed the Nazis “came out of the dark” to show their support of the occupiers.
The narrator turns out to be Flame (Thure Lindhardt), a 23-year-old giving himself a pep talk, telling himself to “act with determination” and to remember that his actions are justified. Then he rouses his confidant and driver, Citron (Mads Mikkelsen), and we are thrust into the heart of Flame’s world.
Fueled by an almost visceral loathing of the occupation, Flame has become a highly proficient hit man, assassinating Danes who collaborate with the Germans. “Hate seduces you into doing things you never thought possible,” he says.
Though they’re done with tension and a modern sense of edge, these opening sections stay within the norm. Then Flame spies a striking, enigmatic older woman named Ketty (Stine Stengade) in a restaurant. Their unmistakable mutual attraction sets off a series of events that radically shifts the ground underneath everyone’s feet.
Ketty claims to be a photographer, but it’s immediately apparent that she is linked to the resistance. What’s not clear is exactly what she does, whom she reports to, what her allegiances are. At the same time, Flame and Citron’s superior, the mysterious Winther (Peter Mygind), changes their orders and insists they begin killing Germans too, starting with a sophisticated officer named Gilbert (a compelling Hanns Zischler), whose conversation turns out to be a minefield.
A key underpinning of “Flame & Citron’s” story is what heroism does to heroes, whose actions tear at their lives, their families, their very essence. This is especially true of the tormented Citron (an expert performance from Mikkelsen, best known as the villain in “Casino Royale”), whose relationship with a wife and child are devastated by his actions.
When someone says of the situation, “It’s not just or unjust, it’s just war,” that may be the most modern message of all.
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No MPAA rating
Running time: 2:10
Starring: Thure Lindhardt (Flame); Mads Mikkelsen (Citron); Stine Stengade (Ketty)
An IFC Films release. Directed by: Ole Christian Madsen.
Written by Madsen and Lars Anderson. Produced by: Lars Bredo Rahbek.
In Danish with English subtitles
