Flame and Citron (5 Stars)

There's a limit to what you can know. At some point everyone has to choose what to believe. Faith is necessary, whether it's faith in a person or faith in God.

Flame and Citron were the codenames of two fighters in the Danish resistance during World War Two. Effectively they were hit men who acted like secret agents, assassinating their marks without any backup. They trusted each other, they trusted their comrades and they trusted their boss, a police solicitor who took his orders directly from the British army. For a few years Flame and Citron killed only Danish Nazis, who they considered traitors to their country. In 1944 they began to kill Germans, which led to harsh retaliation from the occupying forces.

What started out black and white for them becomes more and more murky as the film progresses. People that they know and love, people that they have placed their absolute trust in, might not be truthful in what they say. This is the conflict I'm speaking of. We can't function in life without trusting others. This applies in peacetime, but even more in war. Trusting the wrong person can cost me my life. Failing to trust the right person can be just as fatal.

But how is it with my moral responsibility? If I trust someone, and then this person incites me to do wrong, am I guilty? It's difficult to give a clear answer to that question. If a person asks me to bring him his coat, but the coat belongs to someone else, am I guilty of theft? In the eyes of the law I am, but morality and the law don't always give the same answer. If, on the other hand, a person or a religion asks me to kill someone, I need to examine my trust very closely before proceeding. If I decide that I have put my trust in the wrong person, I have to judge that person, asking whether he was deliberately misleading me. It can be traumatic for a person to realise that the religion he has believed in all his life is a thing of evil. A person in that state needs help and guidance, not criticism for what he's done. But if a person is unable or unwilling to judge his object of trust, he carries the full guilt for his actions. Legally and morally.