REVIEW: “A War” administers silent kill shot

The opening seconds of Danish writer and director Tobias Lindholm’s “A War” show us something we think we’ve seen before.

There are men in uniform, trudging through what appears to be Afghanistan. They shout coordinates. The camera shakes. Suddenly, someone steps on an IED. The camera shakes harder, the men shout louder, everything is thrown into chaos that tears at the viscera. It’s all very tightly controlled and wouldn’t be out of place as the kickoff of, say, a Kathryn Bigelow film.

Then, brilliantly, Lindholm shifts gears.

After Company Commander Claus Michael Pedersen (Pilou Asbæk) and his men have — or haven’t — dealt with the initial fuss, we’re plunged without warning into the relative tranquility of the suburbs. Young mother Maria (Tuva Novotny) is discussing the behavioral outburst of her dour oldest son with her youngest in tow. Before long, it’s revealed that Maria is Claus’ wife, left to care for their children during his deployment.

Lindholm never belittles the toll that motherhood takes on Maria when he juxtaposes it with the struggles of Claus’ unit in Afghanistan. Instead, for the film’s first two thirds, he trains his focus on the way that individuals react to mounting stress. He doesn’t rank the stressors in order of importance — they are what they are, and the importance, he argues, lies in how we deal with them.

The film progresses, in its initial segments, by drawing quiet parallels between Claus and Maria’s respective plights. Lindholm puts each of them in a series of almost anecdotal segments of moral conundrum, and we watch as they begin to mount. He never calls into question the morality of the war Claus is fighting and his self-proclaimed duty to help civilians better their home, as the circumstances are irrelevant to the people inside them.

The back-and-forth continues until just past the one-hour mark, when “A War” takes another left turn. This one’s a lot more potent.

Something grave has happened in Afghanistan, in a sequence that would be the climax of any other war film. In this one, it’s the jumping-off point for the real question at the film’s moral center. Claus has made a decision to save one of his men, and in the process, he may or may not have committed a war crime. Much to the surprise and delight of his children, he’s flown home to await trial.

When Claus returns to Denmark, we’re spared the PSA on post-traumatic stress disorder that we might expect. He’s scarred, yes, but he barely betrays a thing beneath his steely eyes. Instead, Lindholm focuses in on the legal proceedings and turns “A War” into a straight-up courtroom drama with lingering questions that stand as tall as, “What does pressure justify?” and “What counts as redemption?”

In these legal scenes, Lindholm compellingly snatches the rug out from beneath us. As evidence mounts, he asks, “What if we’re not following the good guy?”

By immersing us in Claus’ situation before delivering the sucker punch, Lindholm drops us into a military mentality and makes us understand the turning cogs of a combative mind. Thus, we’re immediately insulated against whatever his crimes may be, but when they’re read back to him in a sterile courtroom thousands of miles away, they become horrifying. “A War” is a sneaky master class in perspective.

With one or two notable, powerful exceptions, Lindholm gives us a war film free of combat. While plenty of Americans have made war films that strive for the relentless psychological probing baked into “A War,” they almost always fall victim to the promise of violence bound up in the material. Lindholm resists this entirely, often actively pushing against it.

Paired with cinematographer Magnus Nordenhof Jønck, Lindholm imbues the picture with a haunting sense of tranquility. Much of the film’s visual language is preoccupied with physical barriers, showing us multiple scenes through sliding-glass doors or windows. The camera floats as an objective observer across a number of emotionally explosive scenarios, never appearing to take sides.

Both Asbæk and Novotny are extraordinary. Watching her slowly disintegrate beneath the burden of young motherhood and him crank up his stoicism as tensions mount breaks our hearts in myriad ways. When the film drags, which is not often, we’re riveted back to it by the grace of their performances.

By its end, “A War” has raised a hundred questions — When do we lie to protect our loved ones? What’s the burden of acquittal on a guilty conscience? What do different social bonds mean under pressure? — and answered none of them. And that’s perfectly fine.

What it has not done, despite initial appearances, is served us something that we’ve seen before. It instead draws us in with expectation, holds us hostage as its lacerating observations mount and then tosses us back into the world, having administered a kill shot so silent, we may not have even noticed it.

“A War” opens Friday at the Landmark Kendall Square Cinema.