Voldemort-"Landmine Movies" and the Landmines in Movies

Marlee 2022-01-09 08:03:13

It was originally published in the sixth issue of "Watching Movies·Midnight Field" in 2016. It is limited to the length of the magazine.

In 2015, Denmark can be described as a "dark horse" in the war film market. From "War Day" to "War", the climax all the way. On December 30, 2015, "Minefields" was released at the end of the year, making a perfect ending for the Danish war film that year. Take "Landmine Field" as a representative, in the war film, the seemingly inconspicuous landmines are never absent...

The devil is underfoot

For Chinese audiences, when mentioning landmines in movies, the first thing they think of is the black-and-white movie "Landmine War". Few people know that "Landmine Warfare" is actually a military instructional film. It's just that in certain times, it was also screened as a patriotic feature film and added a plot to play tricks on the invaders. In a real war, landmines will not bring the slightest joking. The charge of many anti-personnel mines is deliberately set so as not to cause death, but it will definitely cause disability. This makes the psychological deterrence of landmines against infantry, sometimes even as good as that of snipers. From this perspective, landmines are the real "Voldemort".

The so-called "mine is easy, but minesweeping is difficult", "Minefields" focuses on "minesweeping". The historical background of the film is based on reality-after World War II, the Danish government ordered the German prisoners of war to clear the landmines laid by the Germans in Denmark. The 2,000 German prisoners of war cleared 1.5 million landmines at the cost of half of the casualties. This seemingly "deserved" plot was resolved by the film with a special setting. At the end of World War II, the German army was exhausted and even pushed children onto the battlefield. Their "innocence" is also the source of the "human explosion" of Danish officers who later sympathized with them. If the prisoners of war were guards from the SS at Auschwitz, neither the characters in the film nor the audience would show any mercy.

Like "War Day" and "War", "Mine Field" fully reflects the meticulous work of the Nordic countries, and the use of props is very accurate. Most of the mines cleared by German prisoners of war were T42 "disc" type anti-tank mines. On the anti-landing barrier on the beach, M43 pile mines are inserted. In a few shots that passed by, S-type thunder also appeared. In the movie, this mine seems to have nothing unique, like a rusty tin can. In fact, once this kind of landmine is triggered, it will explode in the air at 1.5-2 meters, and its lethality is very terrifying. The Allies called it "Bounce Betty." The firearms and props are more meticulous. The M1910/21 "Begmann-Bayard" 9mm pistol appeared in the movie, and the M/41 9mm submachine gun developed by Denmark imitating the Finnish M31 "Somi" 9mm submachine gun, produced in Switzerland The M1896 "Mauser" 6.5mm rifles are extremely rare. Even the filming location of the film was selected at the location of the minefield where the German prisoners of war once worked-Denmark's Oxborn Lefoji Barracks.

In the fragment of "Landmine Field", German "children" prisoners of war lie on the beach, searching for landmines with iron rods.

"Minefield" fragment, German "children" prisoners of war are removing the found T42 "disc" anti-tank mines. Note that there are leads connected under the mines, which form a series of booby mines with the lower layer of mines. Minesweepers would be blown to pieces if they didn't find it.

You didn't discuss it

There is a saying in the military of "offensive mine-laying", but from an individual point of view, landmines are still static defensive weapons. Although it seems passive, it vividly embodies the concept of "the good defender hides under the nine places" in "The Art of War". Under certain circumstances, it can even have the effect of "a soldier without a fight". Like "Minefields", the 2014 British film "Kajaki" is also an out-and-out "landmine movie." It's just that the minefield is no longer a picturesque Nordic beach, but a barren land in the Afghan valley.

The value of "Kajaki" is that the film is entirely based on real events, and the characters even have corresponding prototypes. In September 2006, near the Kajaki Reservoir in Afghanistan, the patrol of the 3rd Paratrooper Battalion of the 16th British Air Assault Brigade did encounter the dilemma in the movie. As a purely "straight man" film, there are no female characters in the film, and it spares no effort to truly reproduce the cruelty and bloody of war. The despair and howling brought about by the explosion of landmines each time the audience's internal organs are distorted. In terms of restoring the true conditions of the battlefield and the fidelity of special effects, "Kajaki" is by no means inferior to "Saving Private Ryan", which is known as a "war milestone".

What is even more surprising is that the landmines that trapped them were not even planted by the Taliban, but were left over from the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. In the movie, the "Taliban" armed forces only appeared in the remote periphery and did not launch any attacks. They didn't even know the plight of the British army, or even the existence of this minefield. The British paratroopers just strayed into an unmarked minefield and had suffered heavy casualties.

At the end of the film, no music or songs were used, but with rolling subtitles, the real radio communication recordings of the British army on the battlefield in Afghanistan were played. Generally speaking, music songs are contagious and can play an emotionally oriented role in movies. "Kajaki" does the opposite, but it can really make people shudder on the battlefield, making the scene of "explosion and severed limbs take off, the flames are the same color". ".

In the clip of "Kajaki", the British paratroopers were blown to blood by a landmine, and they were still struggling to help each other when they were wounded.

Thunder catastrophe can not escape

In 2001, Bosnia and Herzegovina launched the movie "Borderless Land". Unlike other "landmine movies", the characters in "Border Land" are not trapped in a large number of minefields, but trapped in a landmine. In the center of the battlefield where Serbia and Bosnia fought, a Serbian soldier confronted a Bosnian soldier, while another Bosnian soldier who died in a coma was stuffed with a Yugoslav PROM-1 thunder. In a very dark and humorous plot, the film satirizes the uselessness of the United Nations, the chaos caused by the media and reporters, and the absurdity of the Yugoslav Civil War. In this "three no matter" zone, three soldiers were eventually killed in Huangquan.

In the movie, the United Nations peacekeeping force recruited German EOD experts, but he said that the situation on the ground prevented him from removing the landmine. Some landmines use more sophisticated technology, which greatly increases the difficulty of demining. The lack or simplicity of minesweeping tools can also increase the risk of minesweepers. For example, in "Minefields", German prisoners of war can only use iron rods to probe the minefields inch by inch to find mines. Some mines are laid in a series of "mines under the mines". The German prisoners of war remove the upper mines and the lower mines will be detonated, leaving no bones left.

Due to the cheapness and ease of deployment of landmines, the difficulty of clearing mines is also reflected in the number, scale, regional breadth, and uncertainty of the deployment of landmines. In the Iranian movie "The Tortoise Can Fly", the male protagonist "Satellite" leads a group of children to earn a living by picking up old weapons and equipment on the battlefield in northern Iraq. Among them, there are many children who are on crutches and lack hands and feet. In the end, the "satellite" itself stepped on a landmine while helping others, and became a landmine disabled person everywhere.

It is the anti-personnel landmines left over from the war that will cause a large number of civilian casualties after the war. The international anti-landmine campaign has been launched more than once and relevant conventions have been signed. So far, 40 countries still refuse to sign the "Landmine Ban Convention." Among them, there are many hostile countries that have been in tension, and military powers, including the United States, Russia, and China.

"Borderland" segment, French peacekeepers of the United Nations troops, showing the PROM-1 type mine jump found to German EOD experts.

"Miracle" VS Landmines

Nowadays, most landmines are pressure-fired mines, that is, "step on and explode." In the American movie "Tears of the Sun", the M18A1 "broad sword" directional mine deployed by the US military has more detonation modes. It can be detonated by the operator with electronic remote control, through tripwire, or even pressure release, infrared sensor or acoustic vibration sensor. The danger of such mines is so great that it is impossible to guard against. Some old-style landmines are loose-fat landmines, that is, "step on and explode only when your feet leave." The existence of this kind of landmines has created the tense "Thunder Kou" section in many war films.

In the movie "Assembly No.", the Chinese People's Volunteers disguised themselves as the Korean army and went deep behind the enemy, but stepped on an old-fashioned loose-fat landmine made in France. "Guzidi" used a bayonet to cut the soles of the boots and soles of the comrades who stepped on the mines, and kept the pressure on the mines so that the mines would not explode. However, how he got away later, there was no positive performance. After the mine exploded, it only wounded the eyes of "Guzidi". This can only be explained by the "protagonist halo".

In the movie "Wolf Warriors", the protagonist "Cold Front" is no longer as simple as "halo", but simply "opened the plug-in". He had dodged the explosion of loose landmines by rolling down the hillside after somersaults. In practice, this method has only succeeded in very occasional circumstances-even if there is a small probability event, then how to explain the "cold front" wading through the booby trap in flesh and blood? Even if the booby traps are made with grenades, are the fragments produced by explosive explosions not as fast as people's running speed? This is simply the "invulnerability" of the Boxer Group propaganda! From 1980 to 1988, during the Iran-Iraq War, fanatical young Iranian soldiers used the method of "human flesh-sweeping mines". While opening up the minefields in Iraq, they were also blown into blood.

In fact, as early as 1996, China had filmed a larger "landmine movie"-"Conquering the Dead Zone" directed by Li Qimin, with the historical background of the Chinese People's Liberation Army's mine clearance in the southwestern border after the Sino-Vietnamese War. In the movie, you can see Wu Ruofu and Wang Qianyuan, who co-starred on the screen 20 years ago. The domestic war movies in the 1990s were also deeply influenced by Soviet war movies, and they were accustomed to expressing big scenes. The People's Liberation Army used minesweeping rockets, flamethrowers and minesweeping engineering vehicles fired by vehicle-mounted rocket launchers. For large-scale mine clearance, these methods are more efficient and safer. Even if the personnel clear mines directly, they are also equipped with modern mine detectors, explosion-proof helmets and lightning protection shoes, instead of relying on some "magical skills."

In the fragment of "Wolf Warrior", "Leng Feng", with his flesh and blood, drove through a booby trap set up by 5 grenades alone. You have booby traps, and I have "magic skills."

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Extended Reading
  • Kaylie 2022-03-24 09:02:59

    The cruelty and cruelty of the victorious restorers are no more dignified than the cruelty and cruelty of the invaders. The two are of the same origin. If demining is an atonement, it should also be atonement by real criminals. Evil is rewarded with evil, often in dislocations—this is the real rule in the real world, and in many cases it is even an explicit rule.

  • Lee 2022-03-21 09:02:45

    War does not hold the victor at fault. Then who will give life justice? no.

Land of Mine quotes

  • Lt. Ebbe Jensen: If they are old enough to go to war, they are old enough to clean up.

  • closing title card: After the war, more than 2000 German prisoners were forced to remove over 1.5 million landmines from Denmark's west coast.

    closing title card: Nearly half of them were killed or severely wounded.

    closing title card: Many were barely more than children.