| Ni Liv | |
|---|---|
 Norwegian classics DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Arne Skouen |
| Written by | Arne Skouen |
| Produced by | Arne Skouen |
| Starring | Jack Fjeldstad Henny Moan Alf Malland Joachim Holst-Jensen Rolf Søder |
| Distributed by | Louis de Rochemont Associates |
Release date |
|
Running time | 96 minutes |
| Country | Norway |
| Language | Norwegian |
Nine Lives (Norwegian:Ni Liv) is a 1957 Norwegian film aboutJan Baalsrud, a commando and member of the Norwegianresistance duringWorld War II. Trained in Britain, in 1943, he participates in an operation to destroy aGermanair control tower. The mission is compromised when he and his fellow soldiers accidentally make contact with a civilian, rather than a Resistance member, who betrays them to theNazis.
The film wasdirected byArne Skouen and is based on the bookWe Die Alone (1955) by British authorDavid Howarth.[1]
In 1958, the film was nominated for anOscar for Best Foreign Language Film[2] and was entered into theCannes Film Festival.[3] In2005, a critics' panel voted it the greatest Norwegian film ever made.[4]
The morning after their blunder, the resistance fighters are attacked by a German vessel. The Norwegians' boat contains 8 tons ofexplosives intended to destroy theair control tower. The commandos explode their payload, and Baalsrud and some other survivors flee. They swim ashore in ice-cold Arctic waters. Baalsrud is the only one to escape the Nazi roundup. Soaking wet and missing one shoe, he escapes up aravine, and shoots and kills aGestapo officer.
Baalsrud evades capture for roughly two months, during which time he suffers fromfrostbite andsnow blindness. He fails in his bid to reach the border of neutralSweden and throws himself at the mercy of some Norwegians who have access to the Norwegian underground. While hiding in theirbarn, heamputates most of his frostbitten toes with an ordinary knife, because gangrene has set in.
The fellow Norwegians manage to move Baalsrud close to the Swedish border, but are forced to leave him in asnow cave for roughly two weeks. They make a new plan to get him over the border, having him transported by areindeer herder, who finally gets him across the frontier to safety.
Baalsrud recuperates in a Swedish hospital for seven months. He returns to England throughSouth Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and America before rejoining the fight.[5]
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) Republished 2007 by the Lyons Press.