04 Jan Winter in Wartime
Winter in Wartime, a Dutch WWII Movie
(2008) During the last winter of World War II, a thirteen-year-old Dutch boy becomes entangled in the Resistance and all hell breaks loose. This Dutch film is based on the 1972 novel Oorlogswinter (Winter in Wartime) by Jan Terlouw, a Dutch author and politician. Terlouw was born in 1931, so he did grow into adolescence during that time. This Dutch classic looks at the Nazi occupation of Holland through the eyes of a child.
The cinematography of this movie is amazing. You can feel the icy cold. In the beginning, the young man Michiel doesn’t really understand what’s happening all around him. Why was his father, the Mayor, so polite to the Nazis? Why can’t he be more like his favorite Uncle Ben who works for the Resistance?
By the end of the film, Michiel understands all too well and I wondered how this little boy would ever survive it all.
Winter in Wartime is rated “R” for violence and one mild sex scene. According to Wikipedia, it was chosen Best Film by the Young Jury (14-18 years) at the Rome Film Festival and was shortlisted (with 8 other movies) at the Academy Awards, in the section Best Foreign Language Film. And the Dutch Critics named it the best Dutch film of 2008.
Yes, this would be a good movie to watch with your older children. The dialogue was Dutch, German, English with some subtitles, but I didn’t even notice. The different languages made the scenes very real. Perhaps halfway through I was getting a bit bogged down but the ending was powerful and yes, shocking.
Winter in Wartime at amazon.com
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