Nine Lives (1957).

Review #1396: Nine Lives.

Cast: 
Jack Fjeldstad (Jan Baalsrud), Henny Moan (Agnes), Alf Malland (Martin), Joachim Holst-Jensen (Bestefar - Grandpa), Lydia Opøien (Jordmoren - Midwife), Edvard Drabløs (Skolelæreren - Schoolteacher), Sverre Hansen (Skomakeren - Cobbler), Rolf Søder (Sigurd Eskeland), Ottar Wicklund (Henrik), and Olav Nordrå (Konrad) Directed, Written, and Produced by Arne Skouen.

Review: 
World cinema can take the shape of many faces and places, having their own ambition to reach an audience that can be both home and abroad, particularly if it comes to awards and attention, with Kon-Tiki (1950) being the first (and so far only) Norwegian feature film to win an Academy Award, doing so as a documentary. In terms of firsts, this film (known as Ni Liv) was submitted and nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the first from the Kingdom of Norway. Although it did not win any awards, the film has endured today as a key film from a country that had its first film produced in 1908 that has found a place for itself in cinema with recognition with its own group of directors and stars alongside use for international productions. This was adapted from the 1955 novel We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance by David Howarth, which was based on the real-life adventures of Norwegian resistance fighter Jan Baalsrud, who endured months of escape in the cold after the failure of Operation Martin to blow up a German airfield control tower. It is acknowledged in the credits that there were numerous people (turned into composites for the film) who helped in his attempts to escape capture and gangrene in his toes, for which most of them were cut off to save his feet, which he did himself. A further film on him was done recently with The 12th Man (2017). It should only prove fitting that it was a journalist and fellow Norwegian Resistance member in Arne Skouen that directed a film like this, with this being one of seventeen that he did in a period from 1949 to 1969. He received a few honorary awards for his contribution to journalism and film before his death at the age of 89 in 2003. This is a fairly interesting action drama, filled with plenty of chilly tension through 96 minutes that attracts plenty of attention while having most of its time spent in an extended flashback, bookending itself through sequences in a hospital. Fjeldstad does a fine job with playing a man on the run, weary but with capable honor, whether when dealing with escape or delirium. The film keeps itself busy with the elements seeming to dominate the conversation, which is particularly true for a film with plenty of ice to go around. The other actors accompany the film just as well, crisp to a film that has quite an interesting time with displaying harrowing events regardless of how much one knows about the final outcome, with the transition to him hobbling himself around as the camera pans away to end the film sealing the film as a capture of enduring spirit no matter the odds. It serves as a fair example of world cinema worthy of checking out for its look within its own culture and history that can serve the curiosity well if one is in the mood for something riveting and capable for its decade.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.