"Winter in Wartime"
“WINTER IN WARTIME” My rating: B
103 minutes | Rated R | Dutch with subtitles.
A child’s simplified view of right and wrong is shattered in “Winter in Wartime,” a snowbound drama from the Netherlands.
Elsewhere in Europe WWII is still raging, but in the town where young Michiel (Martijn Lakemeier) lives the horrors are far away.
Still, Michiel hates the occupying Germans and is contemptuous of his father Johan (Raymond Thiry), the local mayor who spends much time trying to smooth over prickly relations between the Nazis and resentful residents. Johan wants only to ensure the survival of his people, but Michiel views him as a cowardly collaborator.
Far more worthy of emulation, he believes, is his Uncle Ben (Yorick van Wageningen), a garrulous jokester who arrives one day with a suitcase packed with ration cards, resistance literature and a shortwave radio. To the boy Uncle Ben is a genuine hero risking his life daily to free his homeland.
Hoping to do his part, Michiel jumps at the chance to befriend a downed British pilot (Jamie Campbell Bower) he finds wounded and hiding in the frigid woods. His efforts to get the fugitive to safety will imperil everyone around him.
Martin Koolhoven’s film is a well-acted, straightforward drama with a couple of devastating narrative twists.
Who’s good here, who’s bad, who’s a coward, who’s a hero? These are issues Michiel will come to re-evaluate. He’ll find that in the grownup world morality is rarely a question of all black or all white.
| Robert W. Butler
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