''For a Lost Soldier'' ( nl, Voor een Verloren Soldaat) is a 1992 Dutch
coming-of-age
Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can ...
romantic drama film
Romance films or movies involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion (emotion), passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typica ...
directed by Roeland Kerbosch, based on the autobiographical novel of the same title by ballet dancer and choreographer
Rudi van Dantzig
Rudi van Dantzig (4 August 1933 – 19 January 2012) was a Dutch choreographer, company director, and writer. He was a pivotal figure in the rise to world renown of Dutch ballet in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Early life and trainin ...
. It deals with the romantic/sexual relationship between an 11-year-old boy (Van Dantzig, portrayed by
Maartin Smit) and a Canadian soldier (
Andrew Kelley) during the final months leading up to the
liberation
Liberation or liberate may refer to:
Film and television
* ''Liberation'' (film series), a 1970–1971 series about the Great Patriotic War
* "Liberation" (''The Flash''), a TV episode
* "Liberation" (''K-9''), an episode
Gaming
* '' Liberati ...
of the Netherlands from
Nazi occupation
German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...
during World War II.
Plot
In the 1980s, a middle-aged Jeroen (
Jeroen Krabbé
Jeroen Aart Krabbé (; born 5 December 1944) is a Dutch actor and film director with a successful career in both Dutch and English-language films. He is best known to international audiences for his leading roles in the Paul Verhoeven films ''So ...
) reminisces about 1944, when his 11-year old self (Smit) and other children were sent by their parents to the countryside to escape the effects of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
The city suffers from food shortages, with more food available in the country. He stays with an
eel
Eels are ray-finned fish belonging to the order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 19 families, 111 genera, and about 800 species. Eels undergo considerable development from the early larval stage to the eventual adult stage ...
fisher's family but, while there is an abundance of food, he suffers from homesickness. Jeroen and his friend Jan go to the ocean and see an American plane in the water; Jan tries to go under but claims there are too many eels and surfaces with a big cut on his thigh.
Things change when the village is liberated by
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
troops. Jeroen meets and befriends Walt Cook (Kelley), a Canadian 20-something soldier. Walt at first treats Jeroen like a younger brother and the boy revels in the attention the soldier showers on him; eventually, their relationship becomes sexual. They also engage in friendly, platonic activities, with Jeroen driving Walt's jeep and cleaning his guns. Jeroen's
foster parents
Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, group home (residential child care community, treatment center, etc.), or private home of a state-certified caregiver, referred to as a "foster parent" or with a family memb ...
are aware of the closeness between the boy and Walt, but it is left ambiguous whether they are aware of the sexual nature of the relationship.
After a few more days, Walt's unit is ordered to move and Walt leaves without saying goodbye. Jeroen hears from his foster sisters that the soldiers are leaving and rushes to their billet but finds that they have already left. (The film suggests that Walt attempts to tell Jeroen's foster father the previous evening that the troops would be leaving, but gives up when the language barrier becomes obvious.) Jeroen searches throughout town, unable to find any trace of Walt, and is further devastated when he returns home and sees that the shirt where he had stored a photo of Walt was on a clothesline in the rain, ruining the photo. Later that night, Jeroen is lying awake in his bed and notices Walt's dog tag on a scarecrow that had posed as "Walt" in a photo with his foster family, and races outside to grab the tag. However, Jeroen catches his hand on pigeon wire on the scarecrow and badly hurts it. He collapses in tears and is taken inside by his foster father. The next morning, his foster father notices the sunglasses that Walt left on the wire while his foster father is burning the dangerous scarecrow. After the war is over, Jeroen returns to his family in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
, and later decides to go to the United States.
The film ends with grown-up Jeroen affectionately recalling the story and trying to express it as a
ballet
Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...
dance. While rehearsing the dance, his assistant hands him an envelope. He opens the envelope to find an enlargement of the only photo of him and the foster family and also a further enlargement of the soldier's dog tag with his identification. He realizes that he can now find his lost soldier.
Cast
Reception
Stephen Holden of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' praised the film's "refusal to load the story with contemporary psychological and social baggage" but wrote that the film was unable to achieve a "coherent dramatic frame". He added that the film does not insinuate Walt was responsible for harming Jeroen or had abused Jeroen, and also that within the work "is no mention of homosexuality."
Kevin Thomas of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' wrote that due to a lack of clarity over the homosexual themes, it "delves into issues far too serious and controversial for such questions to go unanswered." He also stated that the confusion over language, as the film is partially in English and partially in Dutch, may have caused "lacks crucial clarity", despite good acting.
References
External links
*
*
*
* For a Lost Soldier: An Interview with the film director Roeland Kerbosc
{{DEFAULTSORT:For A Lost Soldier
1992 films
1992 LGBT-related films
1990s coming-of-age drama films
1992 romantic drama films
1990s teen drama films
1990s teen romance films
1990s war drama films
Dutch coming-of-age films
1990s Dutch-language films
1990s English-language films
Dutch LGBT-related films
Dutch romantic drama films
Dutch teen films
Dutch war drama films
Films about pedophilia
Films based on biographies
Films set in 1944
Films set in the Netherlands
Gay-related films
LGBT-related coming-of-age films
LGBT-related romantic drama films
Teen LGBT-related films
Dutch World War II films
1992 multilingual films
Dutch multilingual films