For a Lost Soldier
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Movie Reviews of For a Lost Soldier
Movie Review: Controversy, not quality
Summary: 1 Stars
It was probably brave to make any sort of a film out of Rudi van Danzig's book. Doubtless the controversial part of the subject matter of this film, an 11/12 year old boy part-willingly seduced by a 19 year-old soldier, was the reason that it was awarded the Best Film and Audience Prize at Turin in 1993. It cannot have been for any artistic merit or general craft competence. When Jeroen and his mother emerge from their flat we are expected to believe that this is Amsterdam after more than 4 years of Nazi occupation and deprivation. The flats and street are in immaculately good condition. The children being packed off to Friesland so that rest of their families shan't starve are pictures of good health. Was the budget for this film so pathetically low that the producers could not drive around The Netherlands coastline to find a village for the arrival of the Canadian liberators where there weren't bollards on the footpaths to stop people parking cars there? Doubtless McDonald's was just around the corner. I laughed. I thought of Monty Python.
As to the main topic of the film, the relationship between the soldier and the boy, do not expect this to remain totally from the child's perspective as it is in the book; there are trite lines of self-explanation from the soldier. The book quite believably develops the relationship between the child and the man, the film doesn't. Since the film is only 92 minutes long perhaps the answer is a censor's sharp scissors, not an example of the film-makers' overall artistic failure. Or perhaps they just hadn't got enough money for enough scenes.
The small, redeeeming part of the film is the depiction of the devoutly Protestant people of this ultra-provincial part of The Netherlands; I believed this representation. In this the film shares it's small success with another poor film set in an extreme end of a maritime country, which relies on sex to get people to watch it, "Breaking The Waves".
Do not expect this film to bear more than a passing resemblance to van Dantzig's book. Do not expect to see a work of art. Don't waste your money on this DVD; instead, if you haven't done so already, buy the book.