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Rating:  - WONDERFULLY HUMAN
If this film weren't so well done, it could be dismissed as exploitive. It's the tale of a young boy and a soldier (who truly can't be more than a man in his early 20s) who fall in love with each other. Because the subject is so jarring, I was waiting for the moment when it would all come undone. That moment never came. Instead, the film maker handles the characters so sensitively that their circumstances make their experiences seem all the more human and understandable. This is not a film for everyone but, for those who take the risk, I believe you can't help but feel touched by the tenderness between them especially because they are drawn together only because of the unpredictable forces of a world at war. I was surprised by how profoundly touched I was.
Rating:  - Disappointing
The problem seems to me to be that the director wasn't quite sure what he wanted to say. The story is of a young lad who is evacuated from Amsterdam to a fire-breathing church place-of-safety and is befriended first by a slightly older but physically maturer boy and then by a young Canadian/American soldier who is also lonely and out of place. Quite how these two identify each other as in need of affection is not revealed. Nor does the relationship between the two boys get going much apart from them both being thrown together, with the one full of hormones and the other very much a child. But the young soldier, we are told, falls in love with this young boy, and I don't believe a word of it - the older man speaks no Dutch and the boy has almost no English and their behaviour is little more than that of a mildly misbehaving comradeship, with hints that a sexual act may have taken place - or maybe not - and not a smouldering or lustful and lascivious look between them! Meanwhile the pastor rants on about sins of the flesh and the young women flirt and maybe do wicked things with other young soldiers that may bring down hellfire and damnation. There are some symbols thrown in: a crashed plane (with bodies and eels in it), an ID tag, a pair of dark glasses, a scarecrow and a thunderstorm. And at last Mum comes to fetch the boy home with a "my, how you've grown". And all this is food for a nostalgic dance production celebrating "freedom" 25 years later! Oh dear (yawn), it's all too one-dimensional and trite. Bit of a pity really...
Rating: - A forgotten film that explores sexual adult situations!
"For a lost soldier" is one of these controversial films that demands from the viewer a whole maturity and absolute conveyance, because deals with complex psychological behaviour, into the distorted ambiance of a relentless war, where the feelings sometimes stand out of a thoughtful control.
At the end of the WW2 , a boy of just 12, initiates his sexual awake with a Canadian soldier who works out as his handsome liberator.
Previously we had the chance to watch "Midnight porter" where the process of psychical dislocation tends to be cloud the senses, the normal logic of what we assume as normal, but this serious and mature approach makes of this film unique in its genre.
Don't miss it!
Rating:  - A good movie with love that comes from the heart
A good heart warming movie. Its background is Nazi occupied country somewhere near the Dutch. It deals with a boy who has to leave his family and live with strangers in the counry side because there isn't enough food. He later meets a soldier and they fall in love. The movie is tactfully done but it deals with the taboo subject of boy love. Recommended for those who keep a open mind to true love.
Rating:  - Not in English
The movie is OK, but they don't tell you it is not in English. Amazon lists the langauge as English, and there is some, but most of the movie is in Dutch or German with subtitles.
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