Stream It Or Skip It?
Number 24, now streaming on Netflix, is director John Andreas Andersen’s dramatization of Norway’s most decorated civilian war hero – Gunnar Sønsteby, codename “Number 24,” who for three years during the Second World War led an Oslo-based group of resistance fighters against the German occupation of their country. With Sjur Vatne Brean as Sønsteby in the past, and Erik Hivju in the present, as he reflects on the decisions that were made to disrupt the Nazis and enable freedom, Number 24 presents a more nuanced view of the experience of war, with a focus on individual bravery and not just big battles.
NUMBER 24: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: “What else could we do? We had to try and fight back.” In the present, as he answers students’ questions about their country in 1940, when a Norwegian government led by Vidkun Quisling (Espen Lervaag) capitulated to German occupation, Gunnar Sønsteby (Brean) in the past makes the only decision he can. To resist. Not yet 24, Gunnar becomes “Erling Fjeld” – or any number of other aliases – and orchestrates the smuggling of printing plates from the Bank of Norway, through Sweden, to the Norwegian government in exile in London. It is dangerous work. Every day, it becomes more difficult to trust anyone. But by 1943, even as the Gestapo and Norwegian-born Nazi sympathizers ruthlessly track and capture members of the resistance, Gunnar and his allies remain ready. “I want to do the hard things,” says Andreas (Magnus Dugdale). The Germans tortured his brother to death.
Number 24 continues to jump between time periods as the elder Sønsteby represents lived history to Norway’s young people, and his past self engages in bigger, bolder, and ever more risky resistance missions. He learns how to parachute. He coordinates the detonation of explosives in Nazi-controlled facilities. And he soon becomes Norway’s most wanted man. By 1944, Sønsteby is never sleeping in the same flat twice, and always carrying live grenades wherever he goes. Because if it comes down to it, and the Gestapo finally find him, “You cannot let them take you alive.”
For the students he’s speaking with, who have never known war, there is a question that can’t really be answered. How did he justify the killing of Norwegian citizens, even if, like Karl Marthinsen (Per Kjerstad), they were complicit in rounding up their innocent neighbors to be put into concentration camps? It’s not that Sønsteby can’t answer them. It’s that they require a fuller perspective on decisions made in war, a perspective they can’t get from a history book. Sønsteby lived it; his efforts changed history. All of his resistance work in the past, and his standing as an ambassador in the present: it was all to counteract Nazi Germany, and its “contempt for humanity.”
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? The 2008 film Max Manus: Man of War features Aksel Hennie as the title character and Knut Joner as Gunnar Sønsteby as it chronicles the anti-Nazi resistance movement in wartime Norway. And the harrowing Netflix series War Sailor looked at the war and Germany’s occupation of Norway through the experiences of a group of civilian merchant seamen.
Performance Worth Watching: Sjur Vatne Brean is very steady as Gunnar Sønsteby, playing him as quiet, unassuming, and observant – the very qualities the real-life Sønsteby credited with keeping him alive and un-captured for the entirety of the war.
Sex and Skin: None.
Memorable Dialogue: “I’m not saying I’m better than anyone,” Gunnar tells British military officials, when questioned about his resilience under German occupation. “But I plan ahead all the hours I’m awake.”
Our Take: In its portrayal of the oppressive mood in Oslo under German occupation, Number 24 is very skillful at presenting how untrustable everything got. With the eyes of the Gestapo everywhere, and the constant uncertainty of locals who might snitch on the resistance movement for money, it’s actually incredible that Gunnar Sønsteby was able to remain alive and move relatively freely. With steady direction from John Andreas Andersen, its effective period setting, and a resolute performance from Sjur Vatne Brean at its center, Number 24 takes the grand scope of the Second World War down to an individual level, where singular decisions made contain within them what is obviously just – fighting for freedom in the face of tyranny – and what is morally grey. “The Norwegian Nazis were often quite worse than the German Nazis,” Gunnar Sønsteby says in the present, illustrating the difficulties presented as allegiances shifted. To do the work that was required of them, because resistance fighters like Gunnar and his allies believed in their country’s true identity, required constant diligence. But it also demanded the mettle to withstand all-consuming terror.
Certainly in America, we associate the Second World War with heroism, and Saving Private Ryan-like warfare on a grand scale. But our country was never under occupation. In Number 24, the war at home is in the middle of everything. Nothing escapes being touched by it. As it presents the effort of one man to retain his value system and apply it to the greater good, it finds lots of ways to illustrate how the battle is always bigger, even if the people fighting it are not larger than life. Sometimes it’s just a guy riding a bike, hiding from the occupiers in plain sight.
Our Call: Stream It. It’s still a World War II epic. But Number 24 doesn’t require elaborate battle sequences to tell its story, with a focus instead on the steadfast work of the resistance movement in Norway, and the extremely personal decisions – and sacrifices – which drove it.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.
