A high-quality historical drama whose action is based on real events takes us to Norway at the very beginning of World War II, in the spring of 1940. Even before going to France, Hitler decided to conquer the far north of Europe, and Norway was crucial there, not only because of its geographical position, but also because of the fact that 85 percent of European iron production was exported from the port in the north of Norway, Narvik . This small town was equally important to the British and Germans, and as is usually the case with such war dramas, we have a general, historical story based on real events, but also a personal story in which we follow the fates of several individuals.
Here, these individuals are a young soldier, Gunnar Tofte, and his wife, Ingrid, who works at a local hotel and is a translator for the Germans and English who are trying to reach an agreement on the use of the port. It is clear that these negotiations are just a front for the Germans, who will soon begin the occupation, and after the Nazis capture Gunnar, Ingrid will be forced to work for the Germans as a translator. At the same time, she will hide the British ambassador, and very soon the battle for this port town will begin, in which, as the English subtitle of the film “Hitler’s First Defeat” suggests, the Nazis will suffer their first defeat in a war that will last for another five long years. .
And “Narvik” was a good film, it is a high-quality production in which obviously no expense was spared in order to present the historical circumstances as accurately and authentically as possible. Even the story is not as typically sugary and pathetic as sometimes happens in such historical or war dramas that concern some real events, regardless of the fact that it is somewhat modeled on the most pathetic war movie of all time, “Pearl Harbor”. The acting is also up to the task, and it’s a good decision that nothing is set in black and white, that is, that we don’t have those typical film positives on the one hand and negatives on the other. It is a story about difficult times in which people were forced to do anything and everything in order to survive and save their loved ones, and with this film we understand what kind of price often had to be paid back then.