Once There Was a War

Once There Was a War

Portrait of a boy.

1966 · 92 min · ★ 6.4 · Drama, War

The film is a window into the world of fifteen-year-old Tim, sharing his joys and sorrows and his first encounter with love, during the German occupation of Denmark in World War II.

Directed by Palle Kjærulff-Schmidt · Written by Klaus Rifbjerg

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Once There Was a War

Et dukkehjem

Both from Palle Kjærulff-Schmidt.

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"Modern vaudeville," where the entire story takes place at Dyrehavsbakken. In an impressionistic style, it tells the story of the waiter Mowitz, who ponders whether he loves the singer Myrna and what true love really is. He ponders too long; Myrna instead becomes engaged to the pianist Bertram, who can get her into the Circus Revue. Mowitz also takes too long to discover the singer Lillian's interest, so his friend Max snatches her up instead, while Mowitz can continue his search for the one and only.
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During the occupation in 1944, filmmaker Otto Baumann is murdered. Detective Helge Nielsen stubbornly investigates the case — even as he's hunted by the Germans.
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Bertram is very happy with his life, but is encouraged to seek new challenges. Bertram is tasked with getting Merland to sign a contract with the municipality, but it is not easy, as Merland has changed his mind. Meanwhile, Jannie is considering moving out of her parents' house and in with Pelle. Henrik and Louise's relationship is on the rocks. Louise thinks Henrik is having an affair with Lisa. Henrik and Lisa's attraction to each other is obvious, but Bertram doesn't notice anything. Lisa and Bertram's lives take a sudden turn when Henrik dies in an accident. Erling tries to make Bertram the municipal director after Henrik's death, but of course, this doesn't come without a cost.
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Four short stories from Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.
Anne og PaulAnne og Paul · 1975
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Paul is a calm and sympathetic lawyer who senses from the outset that his wife Anne has found herself a boyfriend. But he doesn't say anything—not until she says something.
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Architect William Sommer wants to organize his life in a practical and sensible way. Yet it is falling apart. His ex-wife will not settle for a check. His new, young girlfriend has a young man in tow. William feels sick to his stomach. He numbs the pain with alcohol. He feels like doing something violent. The nice man is about to explode...
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Daniel owns a shoe factory. He is in his fifties, married to Elisa, has a son who studies psychology and a mother who is at a nursing home. But when he applies for a life insurance his life changes. Because he has to undergo a number of health examinations, and maybe he is not what the insurance people call "a good life".
The Olsen Gang in a FixThe Olsen Gang in a Fix · 1969
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A good looking female social welfare worker makes Egon Olsen forget about crimes for some time, but when an American gangster breaks into a local bank and the police think its Egon's work, he has to get back to work to prove he's innocent.
ToTo · 1964
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In this romantic drama, Niels (Jens Osterholm) is a petty thief and irresponsible lout who meets Lone (Yvonne Ingdal), a hospital lab assistant who is just the opposite of Niels. The two meet, fall in love, and must learn the old adage that opposites attract. The unenviable Niels and the model citizen Lone are helpless to fight their passionate chemistry when they are together.
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Stunning photography of icy tundra does not make up for dramatic weaknesses in this average story about a brother searching for clues to the death of his sibling in a forbidding environment. Erik (Thomas Eje) is newly divorced and a depressed, despairing man who arrives in Greenland after his brother died in a hang-gliding accident. He eventually moves in with an Inuit woman Soerine (Naja Rosing Olsen) and her son Nikki, whom Erik suspects is his dead brother's child. His search and suspicions are punctuated by other subsidiary, mini-dramas, and long, sweeping vistas of the ice-bound landscape.
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The story opens just before Christmas, when solitary, apathetic bank clerk Flemming Borck uncovers a plot to rob his bank. After doing a little rookie recon, Borck identifies the would-be bank robber as a faux shopping-mall Santa Claus, and counter-plots to steal the money himself and let Santa take the blame. This works out about as badly as you might imagine, and our bumbling protagonist spirals further and further away from the carefree, laconic lifestyle he had hoped to ensure for himself.
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He freed the slaves in 1848. He spoke out against the king and the government. He loved his wives equally. He was colorful, he was autocratic, he was Denmark's last governor-general of the West Indies, his name was Peter von Scholten. The film about him is a magnificent story of greatness, power, and stubbornness on the one hand, and of love, loyalty, and melancholy on the other. It is a colorful gallery of characters that depicts the times, the Dane in a foreign land—and the black man in relief to the white.
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