The Shadow in My Eye (2021)

The Shadow in My Eye (2021)

And the sky darkens…

Original title: Skyggen i mit øje which means ‘The Shadow in My Eyes’.

Danish film written, co-produced and directed by Ole Bornedal,

Original languages: mostly Danish, but there is some German, English and French

The distribution companies are SF Studios for Denmark and Netflix for the rest of the world.

What an atrocious film!
It shows horror from many angles, in many forms: war, fatal mistakes, injustice, the death of children, the loss of loved ones, being injured and trapped under rubble, the horror of bombing the wrong target, claustrophobia, drowning, torture…

It’s hard to give anything less than four stars. And I respect, understand and admire those who will give the maximum mark. It’s clearly deserved, but I couldn’t do it. That said, it’s safe to say that this is the masterpiece of Ole Bornedal, who made the first Nightwatch/Nattevagten/Le Veilleur de nuit in 1994, as well as its remake in 1997 and its sequel in 2023. It’s a bit strange to go back there after making a film like this! But the first remains his greatest success, apparently.

In 1997, he produced Guillermo Del Toro’s Mimic. He wrote and directed I Am Dina in 2003. And he has also made The Possession (2012), Just Another Love Story (2010) and The Substitute (2007), among others.

Bornedal lives in Copenhagen. I consider him to be a very good director. All the films I’ve seen are worthwhile.

Here’s how to film an infamous and abominable true story. Sure, there’s blood and violence! But the bad tongues will just say that it’s trendy! Others will more intelligently say that, unfortunately, it’s a true story. So… in relation to that… No, we’re still being kept in the dark about a lot of this violence. What’s worse than war, after all?

Yes, I admit that I’m also shocked by those who have just said that this film is poorly made, boring, too long, flat, and so on. At some point, you either know what great cinema is, or you don’t, because you don’t understand it or only understand it through fantastic action or science fiction films!

This film tells the story of a little-known, almost forgotten, historical drama from the 2nd World War, and it’s easy to see why. A real event at the end of the Second World War: the bombing of a school by the British allies. I shed a few tears and was overcome with emotion. The most insensitive will say that, apart from the terrible beginning, the film then gets bogged down in a pointless romance with Sister Teresa, that it’s just more filler, that the film takes a long time to unwind, that the false suspense with the airmen is interminable… and so on! These people are so predictable and have to watch films at breakneck speed, believing themselves to be hyper-intelligent and more knowledgeable than the average person. Congratulations: they’re completely off the mark and don’t even realise it!

After an hour, the main thing comes into focus: the bombardment. From then on, the rescue begins. It’s well acted, including the children, except for those who have no emotion. Yes, because it’s easy to say that it’s badly acted, especially if you’ve never experienced these situations and are a thousand miles from realising it. Not everyone has to scream bloody murder in these despicable situations. Sometimes, remaining neutral, empty and impassive shows a desire to be strong or to have experienced a shock too great to be able to withstand.

The direction lacks a little punch at times, but this is clearly deliberate. It’s not amateurish. It is very effective, for example, during the magnificently filmed flight over Copenhagen. The special effects, especially the planes, are realistic. The bombs smell like cgi, but there’s a real sense of stress and drama when they’re dropped.

Of course, I’ve also read sentences like: ‘Such a subject could have resulted in a masterpiece, alas it’s Netflix and formatted for a special audience.’ And yet we’ve seen so much worse!

So, as far as I’m concerned, it’s a very good film with its share of incredible and unpredictable scenes. I wasn’t at all disappointed to have watched it, I felt a lot of emotion and got chills. The beginning is sometimes a little slow, but that’s necessary to properly introduce all the characters in the story. The first part may seem a little confusing, but it mixes up the stories of the future protagonists who will take part in this disaster.

A feature film that will leave a lasting impression!

A film that pays tribute to the victims of this tragedy.