A War (Krigen) Review: Fighting from front line to home front

American cinema has had great difficulty interesting audiences in the Afghan war. Now, Tobias Lindholm, director of the excellent A Hijacking, brings a very Danish eye to that conflict. Like so much recent cinema from the same nation, A War trades in a school of quiet naturalism that expands character and plot with great subtlety. Lindholm's film may be the best fictional study of that war to date.

Known for his role as Euron Greyjoy in Game of Thrones, and as the spin doctor Kasper Juul in Borgen, Pilou Asbæk plays Claus, the considerate, thoughtful commander of a Danish company in a hostile province. He's the sort of chap who will listen compassionately before bawling a fellow out. In the opening sections, Lindholm cuts from life on the battlefront to the protagonist's wife back at home. Her son gets in trouble at school. She waits expectantly for the next phone call.

The film takes its most significant swerve during a fierce battle that – shot with kinetic fury and impressive clarity – results in the death of 11 locals, some of whom were civilians. Claus is called home to face a tribunal and the film resolves itself into a tense courtroom drama.

A War positions itself interestingly. Emerging in the disproportionately liberal space that is European cinema, the picture will encounter many audiences skewed against the occupying forces and the script certainly allows uncertainty as to Claus's guilt. But, if the closing act has a lesson, it is that remote judgements on combat deaths are almost impossible to make securely.

Nicely shot by Magnus Nordenhof Jønck, the film is edited with the light touch we now expect from Danish cinema. The battle is furious. The courtroom is tense. It is Pilou Asbæk's performance that grounds the film. The moral centre of A Hijacking, he here embodies all the awful uncertainties that attend life as a soldier. Kipling might have got on quite well with A War.