L'Écume de la guerre

I didn't know what to expect of this series, having neither read nor seen anything about it prior to watching it. Be forewarned -- it is difficult to watch (that is an understatement).

Rarely has a war experience been so poignantly translated to the screen. It's an utterly devastating and powerful portrayal about how war destroys people, physically and mentally. And despite our wish for a Hollywood ending, for many the mental wounds inflicted during war never heal; the torment ends only in the grave.

The acting is uniformly superb, but special commendation must be given to Kristoffer Joner, whose portrayal of Alfred is sublime. Kudos also to Pål Sverre Hagen, who plays Alfred's comrade, Sigbjørn.

I highly recommend giving Krigsseileren (War Sailors) a watch. The episodes were so gripping I watched the entire series in one sitting.

I'd just finished Greyhound, excited some attention was FINALLY being paid to the Atlantic War...an aspect of WWII few know or think about. All of that "stuff" the US made during the war to fight back against the Axis was useless unless it got to Europe. Sounds simple enough but the convoys carrying these supplies were constantly under attack from the stealthiest vessels of the war; submarines. Greyhound excels at showing the stressful, thrilling yet deadly game of cat & mouse played between allied surface vessels & enemy subs. It's combat at sea between two military forces. While escorting the convoy countless cargo vessels are attacked and sunk. These cargo ships are shown burning & sinking and theres some dialogue about their crews survival - or not...then it's back to the fight. What about those crewmen? These civilian merchant sailors? What was their perspectiv from their experiences?

WAR SAILOR takes us along with a small group of Norwegian merchant sailors as they work aboard a cargo ship during the early days of the war. The experiences and trauma experienced by these people as well as their families at home is filled with tension, worry & horror and as heartbreaking a story as one can imagine; told both in the midst of war as well as after. I highly recommend this either with or without the addition of Greyhound for a complementary experience. I will add that while I enjoyed Greyhound very much it's fairly 2 dimensional in the treatment of its human characters. There's not a lot to them, honestly. WAR SAILOR on the other hand is actually about ordinary people thrust into this incredibly difficult period of history. It's heartfelt and unflinching. I can't recommend it enough.

In "War Sailor" we have average production values, excellent acting and a documentarian approach to the participation of the Norwegian merchant marine during World War Two. But as a drama it is not a movie one should see when they're not in the best of moods. It is overwhelmingly depressing. I watched all three episodes end on end, and I should not have done that. So, I emphatically recommend that viewers do not "binge" on this mini-series. This is not a war movie that shows the triumph of the human spirit, and in fact demonstrates the absolute darkest corners of that spirit. In fact, this movie seems to say, "Life is unrelentingly harsh, then you die."

So, I very rarely write reviews on here. Lots of more eloquent people than I! However, like the reviews to date, I sat to watch, knowing little about the title. Tend to be drawn to WW2 drama.

This was truly compelling viewing from start to finish. Like others, I watched all the way through in one sitting.

The story is compelling and one that I wasn't too familiar with.

The characters were well developed and one could empathise easily. Cinematography was stunning. Big fan of Scandinavia & it portrayed well.

The depiction of war here felt "real" i.e. The random cruelty, injustice, coincidences, 'the way things work out'.

Well done. So good, I felt obligated to review!

This is a typical Norwegian production - average and not ridiculously bad, but has unnaturally written and -executed dialogues, single-geared slow pace and dark mood (here's Ibsen's realism for you) and very little talent and effort put into action scenes because entertainment is just for shallow productions, right? This could almost have been a theatre piece the way it was executed. It seems like they believe the more miserable the depiction, the higher quality and more praise from the critics. And yet it never really pulls you in as the scenes are rushed without a proper build-up, and they're trying to reach depth, intensity and tension by having the actors scream, shout and curse at each other without believable body language, which ironically makes the movie/series come off as shallow as these are seemingly the only ingredients within their repertoire. Pål Sverre Hagen is one of very few who's able to act more or less naturally. None of the other actors are bad, but they are stuck in the dominant Norwegian theatrical acting. Authentic acting is something Norwegian actors can learn from the British or American, or anywhere else outside of the Nordics really.

A lot of screen time was given to the family's miserable time back home, and I guess it's fair to include that aspect of war too, but it doesn't really help the story - it's too much. Just a lot more screaming and cursing. This is the opposite of elegant and emotional.

Why not include at least some build-up of the attacks, and show how the sailors handled this operationally? Was it a budget constraint, even though they had the highest budget of any Norwegian production to date? The viewer is offered no overview of how things really were, and even if this was done intentionally because we're supposed to get a feeling of how it was for each individual, it's not intriguing enough. Instead they are focusing on one young man screaming in agony for several minutes (he did an okay job given the writing) - this could have been a powerful scene, but it comes off as a cheap and lazy emotional trick. It wasn't exactly a Black Hawk Down-quality of a similar scene.

The real-life sailors were also robbed of acknowledgment and their promised compensation from the Norwegian government until decades later, which is one of the darker sides of Norway's WW2 history and one of the most important aspects in the aftermath of the war in Norway, but this was also hardly explored and described in this series. Comes off as a bit gutless and politically correct. Including PTSD among some of the characters after the war was important, but it's not like the series lacked of demonstrating the emotional tolls of war throughout the series anyway. One aspect that was balanced in a good way was that the Germans weren't shown as a bunch of evil people without any trace of empathy unlike many other WW2 dramas.

Overall this was a wasted opportunity that could have been far better with a different angle IMO - the brave and forgotten men (approx. 30 000 men and 200 women) that were the war sailors had deserved a better depiction of their efforts than this. But at least it's better than nothing, and kudos for giving it a shot.