Voor een verloren soldaat

VOOR EEN VERLOREN SOLDAAT (FOR A LOST SOLDIER) is a startlingly frank look at a young boy's love affair with a Canadian soldier during the last days of World War II. Thirteen-year-old Jeroen (Maarten Smit) is sent by his parents from his home in Amsterdam to the countryside because of the food shortages in the cities. He is there when the Allied troops liberate the Netherlands, effectively ending the war for the Dutch people. Jeroen meets and is immediately attracted to Walt (Andrew Kelley), one of the Canadian soldiers. The resulting love affair is handled with extraordinary sensitivity and frankness; this story would never have been filmed in the US. Despite Jeroen's being underage, there is no suggestion of child abuse; indeed, at certain points the film makes clear that the young boy is pursuing the older man. Told in flashback, this achingly romantic film has a dreamlike quality that leaves you wanting more.

Having lived and worked in the Netherlands and knowing its language, I have been interested in the Dutch cinema as well, particularly if Rutger Hauer or Jeroen Krabbé present. There have lots of films on the WWII been made, nicely versatile ones, as the period was one of the most painful and complex in the country's history. Thus, I was eager to learn how the war era was made compatible with such a sensitive topic like man-boy relationship.

But the latter was not much visible in Voor een verloren soldaat (perhaps in the autobiographical novel of the same title - I have not read that); it was even not clearly visible if there was some mutual erotics at all. What we saw was a 20+ years foreign soldier acting as a caring mentor, showing a boy far from home and family new angles of life; besides, I do not believe that showing affection towards a boy would have been normally accepted by both the religious Dutchmen and militant Canadians in those days...

Anyway, the mood in the film is pleasant, performances realistic, and viewers obtain a nice overview of Friesland under slackening Nazi occupation. But do not try to find any sensationalism, as mentioned, it is a good depiction of friendship - with some affection - during a war period when many things and deeds are perceived in another way.

Loosely based on the autobiography of Rudi van Danzi, FOR A LOST SOLIDER tells the story of a Dutch boy's emotional and sexual relationship with a young adult American solider during World War II. The film presents the relationship as a loving and often magical one--and asks the viewer to consider if such relationships are intrinsically abusive or if they might, in extraordinary instances, have validity and even integrity.

It should be very obvious that the subject and issues raised are likely to provoke a knee-jerk reaction in most people--but even so, FOR A LOST SOLDIER has remarkable delicacy. The film is not explotational in any way, it is beautifully acted and filmed, and the difficult material is handled by the director, writer, and cinematographer with considerable grace.

All of this said, however, the film is so careful to avoid the obvious pitfalls that in some respects it fails to make any significant statement. What ultimately emerges is a memory--the film is presented as an extended flashback--but exactly how that memory reverberates in present time is vaguely expressed at best. And while the film does not consider this particular relationship to be deliberately abusive, it begs but never answers the question of intrinsic abusive, leaving the viewer to do battle with that knotty issue entirely on their own.

Those who watch FOR A LOST SOLIDER thoughtfully and with an open mind will find it forces them to define their own ideas about what is and is not abusive. This may actually be point of the film, to motivate an examination of personal values--but if so it is a point made by a very, at times almost impossibly indirect implication. Recommended for sophisticated viewers, but even they are more likely to find it more problematic than substantial.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

I don't know if a boy of 12 can be attracted sexually to an adult male as was depicted in this movie. For me it raises the question of at what age does a person who is going to grow up gay become interested in someone of the same sex. It is obvious that the young soldier takes advantage of the innocence of a youngster although it is suggested too that the feelings of the soldier are more than merely sexual. The dance scene implies that there was love. The end of the movie and the title implies that the boy remembers the soldier in later years and as a mature adult with affection and perhaps longing so one is tempted to conclude that relationship with the young soldier though brief was meaningful. I was reminded of the relationship of the boy and the old man in Cinema Paradiso which although certainly not of a sexual nature was also very important to both the boy and the man. For a Lost Soldier gave me much to think about and is likely to provoke much thought in the intelligent viewer.

I have watched this film many times and I recently viewed it again. The only really interesting part of the movie is the relationship between the young boy and the soldier. Everything else that happens in the film is really just to establish why this young man would be drawn to someone kind and caring. What I wish would have been delved into more was how the soldier came to feel the way he does about the kid. He talks a little about his past with his father and mother but never really explains himself personally. He does not look like he would have ever had a problem getting a girl, so his "prediliction" becomes even more a mystery.

I really applaud the fact that the film maker was able to tell this story so sensitively without it being lurid. It is a shame I think that a film like this could never have been made in America, "the land of the free".