The Shadow in My Eye (Skyggen i mit øje) aka The Bombardment (2021) – Slow burn tragedy

Genre – War Drama (based on a true story)

Time: 1 Hour, 48 minutes

Platform: Netflix

Language: Danish (English Subtitles)

Fact: Danish Resistance had been pestering the British air force to carry out a raid on the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen, as many Danish Resistance prisoners were housed there. The Germans kept all the prisoners in the top floors to deter any air raid like the Amiens raid of February 1944, during which RAF Mosquito bombers bombed the Amiens jail, freeing many French prisoners but also killing some 100+ of them, along with their German captors. RAF did not want a repeat performance and resisted the call to do so. Thugh everyone knew the war’s end was near, the call from Danish Resistance sounded very desperate. Finally, the RAF relented and on March 21, 1945, they bombed the Gestapo HQ in Copenhagen. RAF Mosquito fighter bombers flew low , almost at 100 feet , all the way to the target. The first wave attacked the HQ correctly. One of the planes from the second wave hit a telegraph pole and crashed into a school. The second and third wave bombed the burning school thinking that it was the Gestapo HQ. 87 children and 36 adults in the school died. The RAF pilots were told of the tragedy only after the end of the war in Europe.

Film: The emphasis is not so much on the mechanics of the raid but like a disaster movie, showing different characters from different walks of life, going through their daily lives, all whose collective fates will merge on March 21, 1945

• Henry (Bertram Bisgaard), a teenage boy, has been traumatized enough to lose his speech after he saw a RAF Mosquito attack a taxi carrying four bridesmaids. He is afraid of the open sky and refuses to walk in his small village. His mother sends him to her sister in Copenhagen where with his cousin Eva’s (Ella Nilsson) help, he attends school reluctantly.
• Teresa (Fanny Bornedal), a novice and a teacher in the children’s school, questions the existence of God and why he is silent and allows all atrocities to happen in his name. She challenges Frederik (Alex Høgh Andersen), a HIPO (police force allied with Germans and tracking Resistance members) police officer, who is angered by his father’s disgust, as he collaborates with the Germans.
• Rigmor (Ester Birch) is Eva’s schoolmate who also helps Henry.
• The pilots who attacked the taxi containing the innocent civilians have been warned by their Commanding officer to be more careful and properly identify a target before attacking it.
• Resistance members are being tortured in the Shell House to share information on other Resistance members.

All these threads intersect in the attack and its aftermath.

The script is NOT about the attack itself which hardly occupies little screen time with the RAF Mosquito rendered by some dodgy VFX. Its all about Henry, Eva, Rigmor, Teresa and Frederik and how their lives change dramatically due to the attack and what they undergo.

There are very few films showing a British/ American raid GOING WRONG and the subsequent consequences. (Len Deighton’s 1971 classic novel Bomber talks about a bombing raid over Germany going disastrously wrong, due to multiple errors, and an innocent town without any industries being bombed into oblivion). Most Western War films are all about precisely bombing industrial targets and hardly any talk of collateral damage.

This is a rare film – and that too a Danish film (why no American or British film eh?) – that sets the record straight. The old saying is true – War IS HELL.

Historical Background – 4 out of 5

Script – 4 out of 5

Story – 4 out of 5

Direction – 4 out of 5

Photography – 4 out of 5

Total – 4 out of 5