Flame and Citron (Flammen & Citronen) is a historical semi-thriller from Denmark, released in 2008. One of its two co-stars, Mads Mikkelsen, will be familiar to American audiences (most notably as Le Chiffre, the villain in the recent Casino Royale), but the rest of the cast is likely not to be unless you watch a great deal of Danish cinema. (Which, I confess, I can’t say that I do.)
Still, the cast is really excellent, especially Mikkelsen and his co-star, Thure Lindhardt. Though my feelings for the movie as a whole are lukewarm, both of them created really subtle, nuanced performances in what could have easily been fairly wooden roles.
The title comes from these two men’s nicknames: “Flame” because Lindhardt’s character has hair red enough to be a missing Weasley brother, and “Citron” (or Lemon) because Mikkelsen’s character once used to repair cars. The two of them are members of the Danish resistance in WWII, assassinating German officers whenever and wherever they can get away with doing so. In many ways, Flame and Citron could be an interesting double feature with Inglourious Basterds as an examination of how far one is justified to go when fighting evil.
Or it would be, if it were slightly more interesting. Flame and Citron drags, and while a languorous pace is not, in and of itself, a default, it doesn’t make the most of the space it decides to take. Though the film is aesthetically pleasing, it doesn’t nothing very interesting with its lovely visuals; likewise, though the characterizations explore a bit of nuance here and there, the movie never really goes anywhere with them.
The film is loosely based on true events, but it occupies an uneasy middle ground between fact and fiction, not quite sure whether it wants to document a moment in history, or use that moment as a jumping-off point for a political thriller. The question of who is telling the truth and to whom becomes as close to a central problem as the movie ever comes, but really, it becomes a series of vignettes that work with varying levels of success.
As such, there were individual scenes in the movie that worked quite well for me. Probably the most memorable is Flame’s visit to a German civilian. His superior warns him not to let the man speak, just to shoot him; Flame, however, is lured in by the man’s amiable small talk about war and motivations for it. It’s also the first true seed of doubt about the selection of the men’s targets, and the greater morality of their actions.
There are also smaller scenes that linger. Citron’s wife leaves him for another man, and in a brief scene, Citron turns up to tell him to take care of his wife and daughter. It’s strung with tension, the wife standing in the background with the little girl and Citron calmly warning the man that if he hears his daughter is ever mistreated, he will return, then returning her wave with the smallest lift of his fingers.
But these gem-like moments are strung together with long stretches where, to be frank, not much of emotional or intellectual interest happens. Flame’s romance is less than compelling, and his relationship with his pragmatic, appeasement-favoring father is only briefly touched upon. Citron’s life slowly comes apart at the edges, but you feel the war will catch up with him before the process is complete. And there are really no characters other than the protagonists to whom the viewer feels much attachment at all. As they wander, numbly, through the end of the war, their numbness insulates even that from breaking through.
Though the production values are good, and there are some moments worth the effort, on the whole Flame and Citron was forgettable and left me somewhat indifferent. It tried to be an art film and a thriller, and fell through the gap between.
Grade: C Not a bad film, in its way, but it never really got off the ground.
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