Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘Number 24’ transports the audience to 1940s Norway, where the German occupation incites the Norwegians to form a resistance. While a lot of people join it to fight the Nazi regime and free their country, Gunnar Sønsteby is one of the few who leaves an indelible mark in history with his many acts of sabotage. The film begins with a 90-something Gunnar appearing for a lecture to the youth, who have several questions about his story, which has now become somewhat of a legend in the country. He starts with the times before the war and how drastically everything changed once the Nazis set foot on the streets of Norway.
The story focuses on Gunnar’s journey from an accountant to an accomplished resistance fighter who becomes a pain in the neck of the Nazis. The more they try to get their hands on him, the more slippery he gets, which leads to everything from explosions of factories to assassinations of top officials. He goes from being just another civilian to a master of forgery and disguise and being tagged as the most wanted man in Norway. He justifies everything he did with the resistance as a necessity to preserve the country, their freedom, and their democracy. In the end, however, all the bloodshed is bound to take a toll on a person, and that’s what we see happening to Gunnar. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Death of His Childhood Friend Haunts Gunnar
When Gunnar joins the resistance, he has to do things that would have been deemed highly questionable and completely immoral during a normal time. However, the rules are completely rewritten during war times, which is what Gunnar keeps telling himself over the years. Still, no matter how much he tries to convince himself that he did it all for the country, there are some things that latch on to his conscience and refuse to let go. The murder of Erling Solheim happens to be one of those things.
While Gunnar and his team primarily indulged in sabotage, things started to get more difficult for them with time because the Nazis were getting more desperate to arrest them. They were ready to do whatever it took, be it torturing people for information or rewarding them for it. There were some who killed themselves because they didn’t want to be tortured and risk betraying their friends. And then there were others who looked at the reward and decided to give away the people they’d known forever. Erling Solheim falls in the latter category, and that’s what leads to his death.
The resistance discovers that Erling wrote a letter to the Gestapo where he told them that he could identify Gunnar and help in his capture. Because he had known Gunnar since they were children, he was one of the few people who could identify him beyond doubt and reveal things that could help the Nazis capture him. As one of the most important figures of the resistance, Gunnar could not risk getting arrested. If he was taken by the Nazis, the entire resistance would be at risk, and all the effort and sacrifices they poured into the thing for years would be for naught. This left them with only one option: Erling Solheim had to die.
When Gunnar is told what Erling is ready to do, he is shocked by the betrayal of his friend. However, he also knows that the war had weakened their country and people, and it was a desperate time that made people do desperate things. The last time their paths crossed, Erling told Gunnar that following the war, his father’s business had taken a hit. He was unemployed, but he still had responsibilities, especially with his fianceé in the picture. Gunnar knew that the reward money was the only thing that could have convinced Erling of this betrayal. Still, the point remained. Gunnar couldn’t risk getting arrested, and the snitch had to go. The only good thing about it was that Gunnar didn’t have to do it himself.
Does Gunnar Tell Anne Solheim the Truth?
While Erling is killed for valid reasons, it doesn’t make it hurt any less for Gunnar. He had lost his friends before, but they had been killed by the enemy. This time, his childhood friend is killed by his side, and that’s something that haunts him for the rest of his life. He carries the grief and guilt with him, but he knows he cannot talk about it with anyone. When he was put in charge of the assassinations of the Norwegians who had joined hands with the Nazis in one form or another, he was told that he would have to take the information about all the assassinations to his grave. The resistance couldn’t be seen as having blood of their own on their hands, as it would raise many questions, the answers to which only seem acceptable in the context of war.
It is one of the most haunting things about his time in the resistance, so he locks it away in the recess of his mind, which he chooses never to visit. But then, during the lecture, a girl, Anne, asks him directly about Erling Solheim, and he is caught off guard. The whole thing comes back to him in a flood, and he finds himself taken by the guilt all over again. However, he tells the girl and the crowd that he cannot recall someone with that name and shrugs away any responsibility for Erling’s tragic fate. It would have been easier for him to forget about it, but the girl seeks him out as soon as the lecture ends. He signs her book, which is when she reveals that Erling is the brother of her great-grandfather. The realization that he is face-to-face with one of Erling’s family members shakes him even more.
Later, during the luncheon, he notices the girl sitting alone on the balcony. He walks over to her, sits down beside her, and talks to her. This scene unfolds from a third-person perspective, so the audience and every other person in the room remains entirely unaware of the words shared between Gunnar and Anne. This distance gives the duo the privacy required to discuss a matter heavily sensitive to both of them. To Gunnar, this is the chance to part with some of his guilt, and from the looks of it, he most likely does it. We see him hold Anne’s hand, not to console her but himself. We see tears falling down his eyes, which confirms that he is speaking about Erling. The camera doesn’t linger long enough to show the end of the conversation and focus on Anne’s response, but the point isn’t to show what she feels about Erling’s death. We already know that the matter is quite close to her heart, though her composure reveals that she exhibits a sense of understanding towards Gunnar, who has finally been able to talk about something that had been weighing on his heart his entire life.
What Five Drawers Does Gunnar Talk About? Why Doesn’t He Open the Fifth Drawer?
‘Number 24’ opens with a quote from Gunnar Sønsteby, where he talks about the five drawers in his heart. He opens the first three drawers regularly. The fourth drawer is opened on a few occasions, but the fifth drawer has been completely shut since the end of the war. The same thing is echoed in the final few minutes of the movie. Following the lecture, Gunnar sits down for the luncheon, where he, once again, speaks of the five drawers. He says that the fifth drawer was permanently closed on May 8, 1945, and it was because of this that he was able to move on in life. The drawers in his heart that he talks about refer to the compartmentalization that he has had to do since he started working with the resistance.
As he mentions during the lecture, the lines between good and bad, white and black, get immensely blurred, and everything done during this time is a clear grey. He admits that some bad things were done by the resistance, but all of that was justified because they lived in a time that called for those actions. Still, it is one thing to defend your actions to others and entirely another to make peace with it yourself. For Gunnar, there are some things that he’d prefer to completely forget about. Erling’s death is one of them. While he feels the weight of guilt, he also knows that he cannot allow himself to be dragged down by it, because then, he will never be able to live his life. We see it happen with Andreas, who is celebrated as a war hero by the entire country, but he cannot face his demons and kills himself some twenty-odd years after the war.
Gunnar would have faced a similar fate had he not learned to compartmentalize things. We first see the hint of his efficiency in keeping certain aspects of his life separate when he goes to Scotland. Before being approved for training, he is interviewed by the British officers who ask him when he had his last drink and when he was last with a woman. He reveals that he has been away from both things since he joined the resistance because he knows that both things can turn into a liability pretty soon. He also talks about how he is able to keep nerves at bay and keep his calm during the tensest of moments by preparing for every possibility in advance. His strategy to keep a hold of his agencies in the time that would break the best of men shows that he is much better at segregating thoughts, feelings, and desires. This is how he survives during the war, and this is how he survives after it.
What Does the Last Scene Mean? Does Gunnar Die?
After the lecture, the luncheon, and a particularly taxing conversation with Anne Solheim are done, Gunnar calls it a day. He takes a cab and is dropped off at a nursing home, where he walks into an empty room. The film ends with that shot, indicating that these are the final moments of the protagonist. The title card reveals that the scene recreates what Gunnar did in real life. He went to the nursing home, where he spent his final night on his bed and peacefully passed away in the early hours of the morning. Having charted the entire arc of his journey, which had been chaotic, tragic, adventurous, and full of life, all at the same time, the film gives the character a moment alone, even if it’s for a split second. The silence and calm of this moment stand in stark contrast to Gunnar’s life, especially the 4-to 5 years he spent with the resistance, giving his all to the cause without any second thought to his own life and what he wanted out of it. But it was because he, and others like him, chose to fight then that he was able to enjoy the peace with which he died.
Read More: Number 24’s True Story: What Happened to Gunnar Sønsteby in Real Life?
