The Arctic Convoy

1942. A convoy of thirty five civilian ships sets out from Iceland; the cargo is supplies bound for the Soviet Union. The route passes below the Arctic and German submarines and aircraft are in the area. At a certain point the warships escorting them receive an order and withdraw; the civilian ships are left on their own and told to scatter. The crew of a Norwegian merchant ship has to decide what to do after that order. Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken directs. Tobias Santelmann and Anders Baasmo Christiansen are in the cast. It is a Norwegian production. The event behind it is historical; the northern convoys ran through the war and most of this one was lost. The matter it treats is the position of civilian sailors; those who worked on these ships were not soldiers and their rights went long unrecognised after the war. The setting is narrow; the film takes place almost entirely inside and on the deck of one ship. The ice, the cold and the waves carry its visual side. It did good business in Norway and was counted among the country's war films. Its limit is the script; the characters are given in short introductions and some remain types. The narrative builds no heroism and the ending is heavy. Who it is for: viewers who like war films and narratives set at sea. Who it is not for: the characters are thin, the pace uneven, and the subject heavy.