For a Lost Soldier
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Movie Reviews of For a Lost Soldier
Movie Review: A good movie with love that comes from the heart
Summary: 4 Stars
A good heart warming movie. Its background is Nazi occupied country somewhere near the Dutch. It deals with a boy who has to leave his family and live with strangers in the counry side because there isn't enough food. He later meets a soldier and they fall in love. The movie is tactfully done but it deals with the taboo subject of boy love. Recommended for those who keep a open mind to true love.Movie Review: Very Poignant
Summary: 4 Stars
I found this film very tastefully done considering the subject matter. You can imagine how it could really happen. Those looking for sordid exploitative films can look elsewhere. I can recommend it to anyone with an open mind to alternative European cinema. This depicts a tale that Hollywood does not have the guts to tell. This is a very different coming of age tale.Movie Review: a soldiers story
Summary: 4 Stars
this film could have been a masterpiece, it lacked a more nudity, just to keep you interested. the boy who played the soldier's friend was wonderful, and the seen when yhe half naked girl came into the soldiers room, spoiled the whole film. but i still gave it a generous 4 .Movie Review: I'm Conflicted
Summary: 3 Stars
Oh, my. What to say about this movie? It is, after all, about a young man having sex with a 12-year-old boy.First, the easy part . . . . The movie is well-crafted, structured around flashback, a deft mix of subtitled Dutch and English in reflection of the idiosyncratic communication that evolves between the main characters, and beautifully filmed in the soft light of northern Europe. As a piece of cinematic craftmanship, I'd give it 4 stars.
But then there's the story itself. Can sexual relations between an adult and a child ever be excused by love or circumstances? Before this movie, the answer for me was a resounding no. After this movie, I simply don't know. The man here is not a sexual predator in that he is not attracted to the boy by virtue of his youth. Instead, he is a gay man doubly isolated by his sexual orientation and by being on foreign ground at the end of a world-shattering war. And, coming across a gay boy likewise isolated from his home at the end of the same war, a bond is forged that did not have sex as its initial aim and came to include sex only after love was so deeply established as to have rendered age irrelevant.
Or did it? After all, the soldier is first attracted to the boy by his looks, not by anything he knew about the boy or his circumstances. And can age ever be irrelevant to sex involving minors? Do 12-year-olds ever know enough of themselves, their world, and its risks to be informed participants?
If nothing else, this movie accomplishes something by making the question tenable. But does it, in the end, make this love affair all right? I simply don't know.
This movie stands up as a thought-provoking film. It should not, however, be read as an unambiguous justification for adult/child sex. Since it, however, implies more than presents the ambiguities and could leave some thinking they've just watched an argument that child sex taboos are nothing more than unwarranted modern western uptightness, I discount it to 3 stars.
Movie Review: Some Nice Moments, but Hardly Great
Summary: 3 Stars
Full marks to everyone involved in this film for taking on its subject, the romance -- apparently consummated in a subtle scene that is nonetheless creepy (and yes, to another reviewer, so was Kevin Spacey and the underage girl in the way overrated American Beauty)-- between a Canadian soldier and a 12 year old Dutch boy in the liberated Netherlands at the end of WWII. But brave intentions do not necessarily translate into a great film. For a much better executed exploration of a similar theme, try LIE (i.e. Long Island Expressway). Problems: it's a big stretch to believe that the twelve year old Jeroen grew up to be a successful choreographer, based on the God awful ballet he's working on to recall the romance. The ballet also yanks us from the past to the near present, not a good device in this film. The Walt character, supposedly charismatic, is mostly wooden, as if uneasy at the role he plays. On the other hand, the adolescent actors are uniformly good, especially Jeroen's friend Jan. And the piety of the country family Jeroen lives with is both convincing and treated with welcome respect. The affection that the family develops for Jeroen is also moving and nicely built. Still, for all its good qualities, For a Lost Soldier is too slow, has too many overlong scenes and is just too conscious of being A Serious Movie about a Controversial Subject.