The Arctic Convoy is a throwback to World War II films popular when the conflict was still in progress that were designed to get audiences more invested in the war effort with their modestly scaled genre exercises. This is both a strength and a weakness. On one hand, the set pieces can be thrilling, particularly when the crew must manage multiple crises at the same time. But Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken defines his characters broadly, so the conflict among the crew veers toward predictable outcomes. Recognizable personality types recur because they are reliable, but after decades of films looking at this war from every possible angle, filmmakers should work from the baseline to improve upon cliché. The Arctic Convoy does not apply that ethos consistently, and yet when it works, it nearly approaches its most obvious influences.
In 1942, the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union relies on supplies from the Allies in Western Europe. Civilian ships provide these weapons, making the trip by boat from Reykjavik to the port city of Murmansk. These ships travel together (hence the title), but the convoy breaks up on one particular run. The crew of one ship are given no concrete answers about why this occurs— perhaps the Allies cannot spare the usual military escort, or there is intelligence about an assault on the convoy itself?—which creates a bitter conflict among the leaders. Despite his ship’s faulty engine and being unaccompanied, the Captain (Anders Baasmo Christiansen) wants to push toward Murmansk, while the first mate (Tobias Santelmann) wants to turn around. Rather than explore this conflict, the film’s three screenwriters complicate the decision by having Nazi aircraft descend on the ship.
Like Das Boot, a clear influence on Dahlsbakken, The Arctic Convoy recognizes how one big problem leads to several smaller ones. Nazi aircraft aside, the crew only have one cannon to fire back, and the gunner is helpless unless someone else dodges incoming fire to load ammunition. The planes also decimate the deck, so the only options are to literally put out fires or recoil in terror. This material is stirring because the crew are all desperate, not heroic, and must hold it together just enough to survive. Another standout sequence involves the boat floating through a minefield while crewmembers use simple hooks to push the closest mines away from the hull. Dahlsbakken focuses on the difficulty of each task, while customary expository dialogue makes their odds seem dismal (the radio operator keeps a tally of other ships in the convoy that were sunk).
The film’s bigger problem is during quieter moments where the crew have time to chat. There is a touch of Crimson Tide to the film, particularly in how the impasse manifests between the Captain and his number two. The Captain is stubborn, while his most immediate underling wants him to listen to reason. This does not lead to a full-on mutiny, but instead there is a long stretch where the Captain is out of commission, creating a convenient way to delay the conflict. The supporting characters have even less character development, whether it’s the crewman who left (neutral) Sweden to join the conflict or the engineer who negotiates an early transfer off the ship that must ultimately be reneged. All the actors seem to agree they’re going through the motions of dialogue-heavy scenes, and the endeavor sags accordingly.
The Arctic Convoy has an oddly lopsided structure. Rather than building to any great emotional climax, the film is a series of standalone sequences. Even the last suspense scene—one where the gunner must decide whether to attack or hide—unfolds without tension, a narrative afterthought rather than a satisfying resolution. Perhaps this material lands differently in Norway: there are scenes where the crew discuss the frustration with their country’s reluctance to get directly involved in the war, and so their big heroes are not soldiers on the front lines. Either way, a cast of ordinary men and women—rather than the usual soldier archetypes—could have been an opportunity to consider how the conflict affected civilians differently. The Arctic Convoy explores this, but just up to a point before the contours of familiar genre tropes become a crutch rather than an opportunity for any kind of innovation.
Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing
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