Would you have helped? Would you have wanted to live against all odds. I am giving this five stars not really because it was amazing but because I enjoyed it from start to finish and felt extremely happy at the end. I liked it even better than Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival and will try Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. If you are just a teeny bit in the mood for a survival story - pick this. The story is well written, and there is humor and hope. Maybe he showed a bit too much engagement I prefer neutral narrators but heck he never wrecked the story, and I was completely glued to it once I had stated it. The narration was OK, but the pronunciation of Norwegian names kind of threw me off at times. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Stuart Langton. This book takes place in northern Norway, near Tromsö and the Bardufoss Airstation and Kilpisärvi Lake. You will recognize the people, the food, hear about the Lapps and of course be swallowed up by the dark nights in the winter and recognize how glorious it is when the spring comes and it never gets dark.but this is scary if you are hiding. Have you been in Norway? Then you will also appreciate it, the book I mean. Here is a survival story and a war story that will make you be happy to be alive. G-o-o-d book! It is about events that occurred in Norway during the German occupation of WW2. This book is non-fiction, it is true and I dare you to read this book and not feel happy at the end. People are not all creeps! People do help others. The 12th Man is well worth a look.A survival epic that will put a smile on your faceĪre you depressed? Are you sick of people? Have you just read a book that has put you in the dumps? Then you must read We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance. It even almost makes some sense given the part of the world in which it took place. However for those sticking around to the end, I have to say that the crossing into neutral Sweden is brilliantly conceived and choreographed, supposedly (just about) true and incredibly emotionally uplifting. Similarly the extended sequences of confinement in his ice cave and "The Hotel Savoy" could have been much more tightly edited, rather than being allowed to drag on to the point of near tedium. I feel the imagined delusional scenes and conversations with a ghostly doppelgänger are just overkill. At a lumbering 135 minutes it's overlong. Kurt Stage, the Gestapo officer obsessed with tracking Baalsrud down, provides a villain whose rage simmers under a rigid surface rather than bursting into stereotypical tantrums. Likewise, Irishman Jonathan Rhys Meyers' impressive German-speaking turn as Col. Though he doesn't have a huge number of lines to rattle off, he is incredibly convincing in demonstrating the enormous physical and psychological challenges Baalsrud had to overcome in surviving situations, he really didn't have any right to survive. JAN BAALSRUD SURVIVAL STORY PROFESSIONALI was staggered to find out that Thomas Gullestad who plays the central role of Baalsrud, is normally a hip hop artist and not a trained actor in any professional sense. "The 12th Man" is also first rate in technical and design aspects, utilising frequently spectacular widescreen location photography of alpine valleys, snow-capped mountain ranges and icy fjords by Geir Hartly Andreassen. Baalsrud himself, during his lifetime, was at pains to stress the importance of the help he received from local folk along the journey and this production has clearly aimed to provide those sort of kudos. Apparently the Dutch-born, but Norwegian-raised Zwart, has long sought to do a story about this Norwegian folk-hero, about whom has had books written and a previous film made about his exploits. I've seen a few of director Harold Zwart's earlier Hollywood productions, but nothing quite like, or as good as The 12th Man. The 12th Man is as much about their stories of helpfulness under fear of German reprisals, as it is about Baalsrud's own amazing wilderness ordeal. His deteriorating physical condition forced him to rely on the assistance of Norwegian patriots. He was the only escapee from his squad of twelve and was able to evade capture from the occupying German forces for over two months, despite suffering from frostbite, gangrene from a gun shot wound and snow blindness. The 12th Man is based on his true story of escape and survival from a compromised and failed Norwegian Resistance commando raid in Northern Norway in 1943. Move over Rambo! Here comes Jan Baalsrud, arguably Norway's greatest WW2 Resistance hero, who I admit to never having heard a thing about, until seeing this movie.
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