Quisling – the man who was such a despicable figure that his name has become synonymous with traitor. One might think that it is a worn-out topic. But despite being a central figure in Nordic history, Erik Poppe's "Quisling's Last Days" is the first feature film about his life. And it has already become a box office hit in our western neighboring country.
The film begins at the peace settlement in May 1945. While Vidkun Quisling (Gard B Eidsvold) awaits his inevitable execution a few months later, the young priest Peder Olsen (Anders Danielsen Lie) is sent in to become his spiritual advisor.
No monster
The hope is to get Quisling to explain himself. Why did he so willingly take on the role of the Nazis' brutal henchman in Norway during the war? It develops into a chamber play in the cramped cell.
Quisling has often been described as a monster, but Poppe thinks it is too simple an explanation, which is also dangerous. He was deeply ideologically convinced, without the traits of madness that characterize other dictators.
He was not primarily after gold and green forests, but wanted to push through his policy. And that makes him one of the most dangerous traitors we have had in Western European history.
The human Quisling
The film portrays Quisling as a broken man, and it is easy to feel sympathy for him. But the question of whether one should portray the traitor as so human is a debate that has been held in Norway. Poppe has his opinion clear.
If we are to learn anything from what happened, we must actually realize that he was a human being. He is not a monster, and he had a conviction we must understand. So it's about finding the balance between explaining what happened without defending it.
Erik Poppe has made several films about the threat to democracy, including "Utøya 22 July" about the massacre in 2011. But our contemporary era does not seem to listen to the warning bells, he experiences that the situation for democracy is getting worse.
We are now watching as Trump almost starts flirting with the idea of the US becoming authoritarian. We must wake up. We need to discuss this and take it seriously.
"Quisling's Last Days" has its Swedish cinema premiere on September 20.
He was the head of government under the Nazi regime in Norway 1942–1945, after he had already approached Hitler and welcomed the Nazi invasion in 1940.
Quisling was originally a military officer and aid worker in, among other places, the Soviet Union in the 1920s, before he became a politician and founded the subsequently Nazi-friendly party Nasjonal Samling in 1933.
Quisling was executed in Oslo on October 24, 1945.
64 years old. Norwegian film director who was educated at the Dramatic Institute's photography department in Stockholm and worked as a photographer for the newspaper VG before his film career took off.
Other films, selected: "Hawaii, Oslo", "The Invisible", "The King's Choice", "Utøya 22 July", "Emigrants".
