At the Movies: Winter in Wartime
If you want intelligent, classical film-making with a strong, satisfying storyline and an air of authenticity, then you’ll probably leave Winter in Wartime feeling you got your money’s worth.
This sensitive war story was the highest-grossing movie in The Netherlands in the winter of 2008/09 and outgrossed both Twilight and The Dark Knight. It won multiple European awards and was shortlisted for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. And deservedly so. In a genre where audiences are baited by ever-more-heroic heroes and beautiful heroines, ever-bigger explosions, or ever-smarter spies, this film’s low-impact, credible approach makes you buy into it in a surprisingly big way.
In the last winter of the Second World War, a British plane crashes near an isolated rural Dutch town, where 14-year-old Michiel van Beusekom (Martijn Lakemeier) lives with his sister, mother and father, the mayor. To the quiet, fair-minded Michiel, his father seems too keen to keep their Nazi occupiers happy, when others around him are furtively fighting back. When Michiel’s beloved Uncle Ben comes to stay, the boy discovers his association with the resistance and is excited to keep his secret, though he soon has one of his own.
Given a document by a friend who is promptly arrested, Michiel reads it and follows its clues through the snow-encrusted woodland, discovering an injured RAF pilot (Jamie Campbell Bower – Caius in Twilight) hidden there. Michiel’s ensuing, personal resistance effort tests his loyalties and changes his relationships with his father, uncle and the airman, costing him his childhood innocence as he has to face some very intimate realities of war.
It’s primarily a coming-of-age tale, but that label undervalues a work that has more to offer. Its unembellished, naturalistic presentation grounds the viewer very solidly in the setting and in the family household. The storytelling is strongly visual but not over-stylised, and the often sparse dialogue allows the action and setting to carry the story, leaving the reader plenty of room for their own experience.
The character of Michiel is beautifully rendered. We focus on his impressionistic, slightly romanticised war, naïve to the adult complexities of politics and neutrality, without exploring the other characters in depth – for good reason. We only get to understand the facts and realities as and when Michiel does, which becomes crucial to the storyline.
It’s a film in the same vein as (the more epic) Empire of the Sun (which like this, gained multiple award nominations and wins); we see war from a child’s perspective and suffer their vulnerability and losses. It doesn’t, however, resort to manipulation or get sentimental. It’s no mean feat to turn a story where so much is unsaid and internalised by the characters into something that keeps you so unexpectedly involved.
Though the primary character is a young teen, this isn’t a kids’ movie. Winter in Wartime lacks many elements that today’s younger generation demand from entertainment, though discerning older teens with an appreciation of history or war stories could get a lot from it. Adults of any age wanting an engaging action story will find it.
The period of Nazi oppression was certainly Europe’s political and emotional winter. In this film, the cold pervades almost every scene. It’s palpable. Take a warm sweater, your ugg boots, and/or a friend.
Maria Polglase
WINTER IN WARTIME (M). The next screening at The Village Theatre will be held on Saturday 19 June at 7.30pm.
