Flame & Citron

Flame & Citron (Danish: Flammen & Citronen) is a 2008 Danish drama film co-written and directed by Ole Christian Madsen. The film, a fictionalized account based on historical events, stars Thure Lindhardt and Mads Mikkelsen as two Danish resistance movement fighters nicknamed Flammen and Citron, during the Nazi occupation of Denmark in World War II. Attracted by the story of the pair since he was twelve, Madsen spent eight years along with co-writer Lars K. Andersen researching historical archives to produce it.

Madsen's idea was to bring attention to the story of Flammen and Citron as he felt it had been neglected or misrepresented. The most expensive Danish film produced to that date, it was co-produced by German companies because initially there was no interest in producing the film in Denmark. Portraying the protagonists as morally ambiguous characters, the director tried to depict war as a complicated experience that goes beyond a good-versus evil dichotomy. With visual and narrative references brrowed from film noir and the French film Army of Shadows, Flame & Citron also explores themes of love, betrayal, and the emotional aspects of relationships.