The Heroes of Telemark

Anthony Mann: The Heroes of Telemark (1965) avec Kirk Douglas (Rolf).

Les Héros de Télémark / Telemarkin sankarit / Hjältarna från Telemark.

    Anthony Mann

États-Unis / 1964 / 130 min / Numérique / VOSTF

D'après le roman Skis Against the Atom de Knut Haukelid et But for These Men de John Drummond.

Avec Kirk Douglas, Richard Harris, Ulla Jacobsson.

    Rétrospective Anthony Mann

    Sous-titres français: P. P. Anmassa.

    Viewed at La Cinémathèque française, Salle Henri Langlois, 51 Rue de Bercy, 75012 Paris, M° Bercy Lignes 14, 6, 31 March 2024

La Cinémathèque française : "Tourné sur les monts enneigés du Grand Nord, un haut fait de la résistance norvégienne qui empêcha les troupes allemandes de produire un composant de la bombe atomique. L'une des dernières œuvres du maître, grand paysagiste de l'écran large. "

AA: A war film, a resistance drama, an anti-Nazi film, a guerrilla film, a sabotage film, a commando (special forces) film, a winter war film, a mountain film, a ski adventure, a Nuclear Age film.

A good and thrilling war film, Anthony Mann's only WWII and anti-Nazi film. Bamboo Blonde takes place during wartime and the male protagonist of Strangers in the Night is a war invalid, but neither is a war film. There is a sense of urgency in The Heroes of Telemark, a feeling of special personal commitment by Anthony Mann and Kirk Douglas.

20 years after the war the period was ending for war films with a sense of immediate experience and lived reality. Most war films by now had a feeling of pastiche, routine, metacinema and war as adventure spectacle entertainment (for instance Alistair MacLean film adaptations), in parallel with Westerns being replaced by pastiches. The Heroes of Telemark is still the real deal.

One last time, Anthony Mann excels in his sense of landscape, catching breathtaking views in Panavision in Telemark, around the facilities of Norsk Hydro. This film could also be called a Northern, just like The Far Country, which was set in Alaska. Negotiating sublime landscapes like the chevaliers of Mann's Wild West, Roman Empire and Reconquista Spain are now Norwegian ski champions and downhill racers with incredible derring-do.

Like Oppenheimer, The Heroes of Telemark belongs to the films about the WWII nuclear arms race (Einstein and Oppenheimer are cited in the dialogue). The Germans are producing heavy water at the Hydro, necessary for nuclear weapons. The mission of the resistance and the British commandos is to destroy the Nazi plan, and after thrilling turns, dangerous ski chases and thwarted Quisling infiltrations, they succeed. The last thrill is to rescue Norwegian children from the boat that must explode.

This true story was first filmed right after the war as a Norwegian-French production, Kampen om tungtvannet / La Bataille de l'eau lourde / The Fight for the Atom Bomb (NO/FR 1948, D: Titus Vibe-Müller & Jean Dréville). That original film is of special value also because in it some heroes of Telemark play themselves.

The digital transfer has been performed well, but in some process shots the artifice is exposed by the merciless precision. 

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: PLOT FROM WIKIPEDIA:

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: PLOT FROM WIKIPEDIA:

The Norwegian resistance sabotage the Vemork Norsk Hydro plant in the town of Rjukan in the county of Telemark, Norway, which the Nazis are using to produce heavy water, which could be used in the manufacture of an atomic bomb.

Kirk Douglas plays Rolf Pedersen, a Norwegian physics professor, who, though originally content to wait out the war, is soon pulled into the struggle by local resistance leader Knut Straud (based on Knut Haukelid), portrayed by Richard Harris. Rolf's ex-wife Anna, played by Ulla Jacobsson, also becomes involved in the effort, and her relationship with Rolf reignites.

Rolf and Knut sneak out of Norway on a passenger steamship to Britain that they hijack so they can deliver microfilmed plans of the hydroelectric plant to the British, who are impressed by the information. Then the two return to Norway by parachute to plan a commando raid against the plant. When a British plane carrying a force of Royal Engineers to undertake the raid is shot down over Norway by the Germans, Pedersen and Straud lead a small force of Norwegian saboteurs into the plant. The raid is successful, but the Germans quickly replace and repair the equipment.

A Quisling (traitor) saboteur worms his way into the resistance group, after they debate whether to shoot him or not. He ends up escaping and betraying them, so that a German plane blows up their safe house. When the Nazis and the saboteur pursue Rolf and Knut, Rolf and the saboteur end up alone, and Rolf kills him.

The Germans then plan to ship steel drums of heavy water to Germany. Rolf and Knut sabotage a ferry carrying the drums, and it sinks in the deepest part of a fjord. Rolf himself ends up on the ferry when he sees a resistance comrade's widow and her young child getting on the ferry; Rolf improvises a "game" whereby all the children on board practice with lifejackets at the stern of the ship. Thus, when the ferry sinks, the children, and Rolf and the widow, are able to escape. Knut and Anna, in a small boat, come and help rescue passengers.

Besides this sequence, the raids (Operations Grouse, Freshman and Gunnerside) and the final attack are filmed on-site, with mountainous and snowy Norwegian locations serving as a backdrop for the plot.