Quisling – The Final Days
Period drama about the last months in the life of Vidkun Quisling, prime minister of Norway during World War II and open admirer of Hitler.
Questions of justice and accountability permeate this bracing account of events following Norway’s liberation in 1945. With Quisling awaiting trial, a pastor begins a series of meetings that officials hope will extract a measure of contrition from the defiant politician. This man of faith will be shaken by his task. In candid conversations between the two men, Quisling justifies his actions. Everything he did served to stop the spread of Bolshevism and keep Norway out of the war as much as possible. This resulted in thousands of Jews dying in labour camps because Quisling had agreed to their deportation.
Such was the infamy that Vidkun Quisling earned as the head of Norway’s government during its occupation by Nazi Germany, his surname became a synonym for those who commit the most reprehensible forms of treasonous collaboration. Yet one reason Erik Poppe’s feature is so compelling is the director’s determination to dig more deeply into his circumstances and motivations. The result presents Quisling as not only a figure of great complexity, but also one with a discomfiting abundance of contemporary counterparts. Poppe’s bold directorial choices ensure that this ostensibly historical film couldn’t feel more urgent. (source: www.tiff.net, adapted)