The 2015 Danish film, April 9th (9.April if you’re European) covers the single day—morning really—of combat between Danish and German troops in 1940, focusing on a Danish bicycle infantry platoon. It may be the best World War II movie of the twenty-first century.
The more I think about this movie, the more I admire it. It has exciting and authentic action scenes that apply some of the cinematic techniques of Saving Private Ryan while never romanticizing combat—the combat seems real—it is one of the most realistic depictions of combat I’ve ever seen.
Its accuracy in terms of equipment, tactics and weapons will please history buffs and history purists (fine—there is at least one MG 42 shown; two years before they were in use). Part of the realism is the Danish soldiers’ use of older weaponry. Not only are the bicycle-mounted troops confronting motorized German armored columns, they are doing so using World War I era weapons. Second Lieutenant Sand’s (Pilou Asbæk, Overlord 2018) pistol is a Danish Bergmann 1910 The soldiers carry Krag-Jørgensens–rifles the United States stopped using before the First World War. Even their lone machine gun saw service in WWI. This movie is like Christmas for historical weapons enthusiasts, but it’s not any sort of gun porn–it’s just trying to be accurate.
That’s right–they’re on bicycles
History buffs may also be pleased how it strives to look at the events from a variety of perspectives. It gives a larger historical context through the few characters we focus on. One civilian near the border doesn’t see the point of resisting since the land she lives on was Germany a few decades before. Soldiers and officers have varying rates of enthusiasm about fighting. It gives a reasonably fair history but on a personal level (I think; this is not a history site). The now sadly discontinued podcast, Service on Celluloid, has an episode on it—they are historians.
There are some minor conflicts in the barracks that reinforce thematic elements and yet seem entirely real. The better marksmen demand a higher share of the limited bullets available from the weaker marksmen, only to later share a limited resupply equally after they have faced combat. One soldier just wants to be a grocer–to live a simple family life. Children play on a destroyed armored car. These small details here and in the combat scenes instill a strong sense of realism and humanity.
The Germans, however, are not on bicycles.
But the film inexorably returns to the conflict of Second Lieutenant Sand as he struggles with duty and guilt. Is it right to obey orders from superiors who may be wrong or lack honor? Is it right to risk the lives of your men fighting tanks with rifles and one light machine gun? His conflict is central to the movie and is interesting and entertaining enough that I want to recommend this movie to pretty much everyone—not just war movie enthusiasts. However accurate and authentic it is, it is also a compelling and human story.
Asbæk’s performance is quiet, but it is all there. I think; I don’t speak Danish, and I feel I may be missing some nuance. Nevertheless, he is clearly grappling with the existential questions of leadership also raised in The Story of G.I. Joe and Saving Private Ryan, but unlike those protagonists, he is going to lose and he probably knows it and suspects that the men he commands are risking their lives for people without honor–or courage—or even sense. Or they’re risking their lives for nothing at all–or for his own vanity.
He may be feeling many things, but he seems like a real human being, facing these horrible questions. Right before he finally orders his men to surrender (Spoiler alert: Denmark surrenders), he takes out the pistol he has never fired, and you can see he is torn—and you sort of are too, even though you’re pleading with him to give up.
At the end there are interviews with Danish veterans who are as ambivalent as the characters in the movie. Though they reinforce the main themes, they don’t really add or subtract from the movie.
There’s a lot in this movie as the filmmakers appear to be trying to cover all facets of the story, so we see civilians and different soldiers at different points to get a wide variety of perspectives. But it is not long or unfocused—it looks at one group of soldiers fighting a battle they will inevitably lose and looks at what duty you have to fight and die with no hope of victory and how you should feel about your inevitable defeat—and those who put you in this hopeless position.
Recommendation
Watch April 9th however you can. As I write this it is available to stream on Amazon and Tubi. It’s a short, well-paced, historically accurate and interesting film.