King of Devil's Island

Original title: Kongen av Bastøy

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Stellan Skarsgård and Benjamin Helstad in King of Devil's Island (2010)

Norwegian winter, early 20th century. On the boys home Bastoy, a new inmate leads the boys to a violent uprising against a brutal regime. How far is he willing to go to attain freedom?Norwegian winter, early 20th century. On the boys home Bastoy, a new inmate leads the boys to a violent uprising against a brutal regime. How far is he willing to go to attain freedom?Norwegian winter, early 20th century. On the boys home Bastoy, a new inmate leads the boys to a violent uprising against a brutal regime. How far is he willing to go to attain freedom?

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.4/10

20K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 8 wins & 11 nominations total

Photos22

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Førstegangstjenesten

Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
Bastoy prison is still in operation today but is a minimum security institution.

Goofs
The movie grossly exaggerates the size of the lead ship of the Norwegian Navy at the time.

As the boys are trying to escape the island, at about 1 hour 34 minutes, the Battleship "Norge" appears in the fog. The "Norge" was a small 300 ft pre-dreadnought - significantly smaller than modern day Frigate. If one assumes that the men seen on deck, are about 1.7 meters tall, the ship in the movie is more than 3 times as large as the actual "Norge" - comparable to a modern day Aircraft Carrier.

Quotes
[last lines]
Erling: I once saw a whale swim with three harpoons in it. It took the entire day to die. He was weak due to the harpoon I shot him with. And covered with scars from all the battles he had fought. I have become acquainted with one boy whom is soon to sign off. For the six years he has been on this ship, he has done everything right. And now, he is going home.

Soundtracks
Sigur 1 (Untitled)
Performed by Sigur Rós
Music & Lyrics by Kjartan Sveinsson, Jon Thor Birgisson, Georg Holm, Orri P. Dyrason
Universal Music Publishing Scandinavia AB
(P) 2002 FatCat Records

User reviews33

Review

Featured review

7/10

Really solid, well acted, well filmed, and well-worn turf...

King of Devil's Island (2010)

A very straight forward, hard hitting, well acted account based on a true story of a boy's penal colony on a Norwegian Island early in the 20th Century.

That says it all. It is what it is, and there is the almost inevitable rebel and leader among the boys against the sometimes evil, sometimes indifferent adults who rule the group with false benevolence. You know who is right and who is wrong, and you follow the plot with a mixture of expectation and outrage. It's dramatic great stuff. Yes, been there and seen that somehow before, but it's severe and beautiful in its setting and intense and provocative within.

It might be interesting to compare this to more famous prison movies (the dubious "Shawshank" and earlier classics like "Birdman from Alcatraz") to realize how much this one is holding to a line of truth. As much as the events are extreme (eventually), the filmmaking is filled with restraint. Compare further to a movie like "Shutter Island" and you know that this one is practically a grey, subdued documentary.

And this is to its advantage. It's not a mind-blowing experience in cinema terms--it's just a really well done, focused, sensitive telling of a forgotten story of repression and survival and maybe, in the end, the every lifting human spirit.