#237: The King’s Choice
Heavy is the head that makes impossible choices
This review was originally posted to Twitter on March 31, 2020
Initial release: September 23, 2016
Director: Erik Poppe
What do you do when you’re (nominally) in charge of a country that’s about to be invaded by a superior aggressor? How do you respond? One could look to Norway’s King Haakon VII for an answer. Erik Poppe’s The King’s Choice is thusly a tale about the sovereign response to the Nazi threat and the impossible choices that followed.
It’s April 8th, 1940. King Haakon VII, known to his friends as Carl, has been the democratically elected king of Norway for 35 years. While visiting his grandchildren, he gets unwelcome news from his son Olav that Nazi Germany is poised to steamroll over Denmark, and Norway is next. Back in Oslo, the German envoy to Norway, Curt Bräuer, is desperately trying to find a diplomatic solution to the coming invasion. The last thing he wants is a war, but the Wermacht keeps undermining his efforts, much to his frustration.
In the small hours of the morning on April 9th — the same day that Nazi Germany would steamroll Denmark — a garrison stationed near Drøbak opens fire on German ships working their way up the sound under cover of night and fog. The royal family and Parliament pack up and head for the small town of Hamar. As the invasion intensifies and several cities around Norway fall to the Nazis, Bräuer keeps working every diplomatic angle he can find, but when the deeply unpopular Vidkun Quisling declares himself prime minister, Bräuer finds he’s got his work cut out for him. Eventually he gets a mandate from Hitler himself to meet with the king alone in a last-ditch attempt to convince the king to surrender Norway and stop the fighting — much like Haakon’s brother King Christian X of Denmark did. The suggestion doesn’t go over well.
Given the impossible choice of going to war vs appointing Quisling as prime minister and capitulating to Germany to avoid bloodshed, the king offered to abdicate should his cabinet understandably choose the latter option. The government, in turn, chose to turn down the ultimatum. The historical record tells us what happened next: Norway fought Germany for the next several months, ultimately losing and spending the next five years under the heel of Quisling and the Nazis. The royal family escaped first to Sweden, and then to England.
Norway was in a unique position, historically, by the time the Nazis came knocking. King Haakon, part of the Danish royal family, was democratically elected, a result of a referendum (his idea) to keep the monarchy after Norway and Wweden split in 1905. His role was largely a ceremonial one, but he was popular among Norwegians (he’d gotten 79% of the vote in the referendum after all) and he could influence politics when he wanted to. But for 35 years he had stuck to democratic principles, and no Nazi was going to change that. Even speaking as someone who is fundamentally against the very concept of monarchies, it’s hard not to admire Haakon’s integrity and dedication to the idea that he reigns at the pleasure of a democratically elected government. And one must appreciate the impossible position he was put in. So with all that in mind, I think Poppe has put together a powerful film. This is not a film that’s trying to teach a lesson, but it’s still something we can learn from about sovereignty and difficult choices.
Jesper Christensen (who some may recognize as Mr. White from Bond movies) makes a compelling Haakon, at once elderly and a bit frail, but still sharp as a tack, and unwilling to bow to pressure from invaders. For his part, Karl Markovics makes a good Bräuer, exuding a kind of political sleaze but still wanting to do what he thinks is the right thing, despite rebuffs from Norway and being undermined by the German military. Somewhere in the middle are a pair of battle scenes, one being the garrison at Drøbak, and another centering around a young infantryman manning a roadblock meant to buy the royal family time to escape the pursuing German army. It’s this latter bit that’s probably the weakest part of the film. What’s ostensibly a high-tension political drama gives way to building an outsized subplot about an almost angelic-looking youth who naturally dies in the fighting. The battle scenes are well-done, of course; we’re treated to tense scenes such as the garrison commander looks for ships in the fog. But they detract a little from the core of the film, ostensibly a biography about King Haakon amidst the crumbling halls of power.
Poppe’s directorial style often feels artificially docudrama-esque, constantly on the move, zipping back and forth between two speakers, zooming in here and there. It’s distracting, and detracts from what’s otherwise pretty good camera work. Yet at other times he seems to develop some restraint; his establishing shots can be ambiguous and evocative, and he has a talent for some truly beautiful compositions if he would just stop moving the fucking camera. In spite of these flaws, this is still a gripping political and personal drama that reveals an important corner of the war. King or not, Haakon took a stand for democracy and kept fighting even in exile; this film does him justice.
