A day late describing Thursday night’s study in history, the gripping Norwegian film THE KING’S CHOICE (2016), caught on Netflix Disk. In multiple languages including some English, all subtitled.
These days folks might not know the background. In 1905 Norway decided that it wanted to be a Constitutional Monarchy. To wit, they wanted to be a democracy but they wanted a king as figurehead so they imported the second in line to the Danish throne and surrounded him with all the pomp and trappings while giving him no real power whatsoever.
And then 35 years later, Nazi Germany invaded and installed their pet fascist Norwegian, Quisling, as Prime Minister.
The King and Cabinet hit the road just ahead of the invading force riding motorcades and trains deeper into the country, taking refuge in one farmhouse after another, sending their children over the border to Sweden, holding emergency meetings over just how to respond, before finding themselves on the run again. They came under fire. They talked about whether a peaceful solution was possible. They ran, and they ran. Three days of sheer terror.
And ultimately it came down to an overture from the Nazis: the King could return to the palace and go back to being a powerless figurehead, if he just did what the King was supposed to do, in that country, and welcomed the new Prime Minister. If he gave his thumb’s-up to Quisling, he could have his life back.
Complicating this: the cabinet, in hiding with him, really did think he should do it, and he was duty-bound to do what the cabinet wanted. A ceremonial king, remember.
It did not work out that way.
Things this film does extraordinarily well: the terrifying appearance of warships in Oslo harbor. The portrait of the King (Jesper Christensen) as a heretofore unremarkable man in a remarkable position, basically his country’s pet, who at a critical juncture was given his chance at greatness. His contentious but deeply loving relationship with his son, Crown Prince Olav (Anders Baasmo Christiansen). A completely separate moment of greatness from a young soldier, Menig Seeberg (Arthur Hakalahti). The sense, throughout, that you were watching history as it happens, the response of human beings to a crisis they didn’t expect, and do not know how to meet.
I did not know how this worked out for everybody involved (except that the Nazis lost, of course), and was therefore eagerly awaiting the closing text.
A terrific story of power seized from powerlessness.
See it.
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