User Reviews

Inspired by true events that took place just before the end of WW2: therefore also its international title "Before it Ends". Starting as of April 1945, Denmark was faced with over a 250,000 german refugees, often young children or the elderly. This already fragile group was distrubuted over many danish villages, whereby they were left to their own, in many cases without any support from the german autorities or the German Wehrmacht. These people were therefore dependent on the willigness of the local danish people for help. And due to social pressure, this often gave problems... and this is exactly the subject of this movie.

This movie also clearly shows that the "Denmark Medical Association" is not truthful to its Hypocratic oath. This by not allowing its members (i.e. Medical doctors) to provide urgent care to people. This neither before the war ended and more stunningly, nor AFTER war end. The consequence was that many weak german refugees, including countless young children - even babies - were denied any treatment for life threatening diseases, resulting in many unnecessary deaths. And this whilst after the war ended, there were sufficient resources - medication and doctors - available to treat them. I personally think it is a huge disgrace that this was allowed to happen.

This movie also shows that some people, - which so-called "fight" for the resistance - are nothing but ordinary murderers. Blinded by revenge, hatered - or even outright evilness - some so-called resistance fighters used the end of the war to murder civilians which they either did not like and/or were of german descent.

A combination of great acting and excellent period-unique props, makes this movie an attractive watch. It very well depicts how Denmark may have looked like at the end of WW2.

I personally found this movie a very relevant movie to watch in case you have an interest in learning about WW2. Overall, I score this movie thereby at 7.4/10, resulting in an IMDB rating of 7 stars (almost 8 stars).

I have gone to watch quite a few WW2 movies, danish and otherwise. This film was an amazing story about a family caught between two strong moral viewpoints, testing their morals and ethics to the breaking point. The actors performed fantastically, even the child-actors did great, depicting how war can poison children with hate, evil and anger and yet also holds a story of redemption in several ways. Its such a deep story, the father, the son, the town, grownups and kids, the danes, the resistancefighters all captured in this movie. This was what I thought broke "De forbandede år" telling too many stories at once, but unlike "De forbandede år" I think this movie tells brings all these elements together in a focused and well directed way. It doesnt feel like 5 seperate movies forced into one, its feels like a unique part of history few consider or know about. How liberation wasnt as clean as we like to imagine. This is a HUGE recommendation from me to you telling you to watch it.

Really convincing acting. You fully understand the dilemma. It is not black or white, but nuanced as in real life. Several times during the film I got tears in my eyes. A thing that is very rare. It is never boring and you physically feel the dilemma the main characters have in dealing with the moral issues of how to behave regarding the german refugees. The boy who plays a leading role is a genious actor, no less. The best danish film I have seen for years. So well composed and to the point. You understand the dilemma of the main characters, even the nazi doctor. Well done amd fantastic acting.