For a Lost Soldier

For a Lost Soldier
Theatrical release poster
Dutch	Voor een Verloren Soldaat
Directed by	Roeland Kerbosch
Screenplay by	Don Bloch Roeland Kerbosch
Based on	Rudi van Dantzig
Produced by	Guurtje Buddenberg Matthijs van Heijningen
Starring	Maarten Smit Jeroen Krabbé Andrew Kelley Freark Smink Elsje de Wijn
Cinematography	Nils Post
Edited by	August Verschueren
Music by	Joop Stokkermans
Production companies	Sigma Film Productions AVRO
Distributed by	Concorde Pictures
Release date	22 May 1992 (1992-05-22) (Netherlands)
Running time	92 minutes
Country	Netherlands
Languages	Dutch West Frisian English

For a Lost Soldier (Dutch: Voor een Verloren Soldaat) is a 1992 Dutch coming-of-age romantic drama film directed by Roeland Kerbosch, based on the autobiographical novel of the same title by ballet dancer and choreographer Rudi van Dantzig. It is centered around an adult Canadian soldier (Andrew Kelley) who meets a young Dutch boy (Maarten Smit) in rural 1945 Holland. They experience a romantic and sexual relationship during the liberation of the Netherlands from Nazi occupation.

Plot

In the 1980s, middle-aged ballet dancer and choreographer Jeroen feels dissatisfied with his dancers' interpretation of an autobiographical ballet they are rehearsing. The piece reflects his memories of Canada's liberation of the Netherlands from Nazi occupation in 1945. In his office, Jeroen shows his colleague Laura a photo of himself as a 12- or 13-year-old with the foster family he lived with during the final year of World War II. A document on his desk, alongside a pair of vintage sunglasses, reveals to Laura that Jeroen is searching for a WWII soldier named Walt. Determined, Jeroen decides to visit the village where he stayed with his foster family. He brings the sunglasses with him and engages in mental “conversations” with his teenage self throughout the trip. During the first of these conversations, the narrative shifts back to 1944.

At 11 or 12 years old, Jeroen is sent by his mother to live with a foster family in the countryside to ensure he has enough to eat. Despite an administrative mix-up that leads to him being placed with a family who initially wanted a girl, his foster parents treat him with kindness. On his first night, Jeroen has a bed-wetting accident while sharing a bed with Henk, his foster parents' slightly older son. During this time, Jeroen begins to realize he is gay. As the war nears its end, a Canadian warplane crashes into the sea near the village beach, captivating Jeroen. He and his bisexual friend Jan attempt to explore the sunken plane without permission but fail.

When Canadian liberators arrive in the village, Jeroen meets Walt, an adult Canadian soldier, and the two begin flirting. At a party hosted by the soldiers, they secretly dance together, and Jeroen becomes infatuated. Later, they coincidentally meet again, and Jeroen accompanies Walt to the hotel where the soldiers are staying. They join other soldiers and their female companions at the beach, but when the group leaves, Jeroen and Walt walk together. Despite the language barrier, Walt shares stories about his life. Jeroen shows Walt the crashed plane, and the two return to the hotel to retrieve a jeep to explore it further. However, Walt’s comrades have removed the distributor head to prevent him from taking the jeep. Walt sneaks inside to retrieve it and decides to shower before rejoining Jeroen, who waits outside. Jeroen sneaks into Walt’s room, and they have sex.

The next Sunday, Jeroen displays newfound confidence when confronted by Jan, successfully defending himself against another attempted assault. He and Walt meet again at a Sunday service. After mass, they explore the plane wreck, and Walt gives Jeroen a driving lesson. While Walt sleeps after they have sex again, Jeroen takes one of Walt’s photos and hides it in his shirt pocket. Later, Walt waits for Jeroen in his foster family’s garden to take a photo. Disappointed that Walt cannot be in the picture, Jeroen suggests using a scarecrow as his “double” by placing Walt’s identification tag around its neck. Moments later, Walt’s comrades arrive and suggest taking a group photo with Jeroen’s foster family. While developing the photos, Jeroen accidentally ruins the negative. He comforts Walt, who is upset about losing the photo, by promising they will always be together. Unbeknownst to Jeroen, Walt cannot bring himself to reveal that he and his comrades are leaving the next day. That night, Walt tries to ask Jeroen’s foster father, Hait, to explain his departure, but Hait does not understand.

The next day, Jeroen overhears his elder foster sister talking about the soldiers’ departure. Devastated, he pushes his younger foster sister off her bike and uses it to search for Walt. Returning home at night, he sees his elder foster sister hanging laundry, including the shirt with Walt’s ruined photo. Heartbroken, Jeroen is woken by a storm and mistakes the scarecrow for wearing Walt’s tag. Running outside, he impales his hand on barbed wire while trying to grab it. Hait finds him and burns the scarecrow the next morning, discovering Walt’s forgotten sunglasses. Later, Jeroen receives a letter from his mother, not Walt, and breaks down by the sea. Hait comforts him and secretly places Walt’s camera films in Jeroen’s suitcase, giving the sunglasses to Jeroen’s mother to pass on later. As they leave, Hait asks Jeroen to send him a photo of them together. On the ferry, Jeroen recalls his teenage heartbreak. In the present, adult Jeroen mentally tells his younger self he doesn’t remember Hait’s words, but his teenage self admits he heard them and chose to forget.

Back in the 1980s, a content Jeroen encourages his dancers during their final rehearsal. As he watches them perform, Laura hands him an envelope containing an enlarged photo of himself and his foster family. Beneath it is a zoomed image of Walt’s identification tag, revealing his contact information.

Cast

• Maarten Smit as Jeroen Boman (child)
• Jeroen Krabbé as Jeroen Boman (adult)
• Andrew Kelley as Walter Cook
• Freark Smink as Hait
• Elsje de Wijn as Mem
• Derk-Jan Kroon as Jan
• Wiendelt Hooijer as Henk
• Iris Misset as Bonden
• Gineke de Jager as Elly
• Tatum Dagelet as Gertie
• Marie-José Kouwenhoven as Renske
• Valerie Valentine as Laura
• William Sutton as Chuck
• Andrew Butling as Buikspreker
• Andrew Cassani as Winslow

Reception

Despite its controversial themes, Kerbosch said that the film was broadly accepted. "In Holland, audiences just took it as a love story," he said. "And that's also what happened in New York, because it's a love story, a beautiful and romantic one at that."

Stephen Holden of The New York Times 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 wrote that due to a lack of clarity over the homosexual themes, the film "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 it to "lack crucial clarity," despite good acting.

While Desmond Ryan of The Philadelphia Inquirer called the film "an acutely observed portrait of adolescent yearning", he criticized the film's opaque ending, saying, "What was evenhanded becomes simply open-ended."

The North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), a pedophilia advocacy organization, praised the film, focusing on the relationship between the adult and child. "We see man and boy kissing, stripping naked, showering, climbing under the covers. There is one long, lovingly photographed close-up of the boy's face as the soldier, lying upon him, penetrates him anally. All of this is handled in perfect taste, of necessity with a minimum of words, since the boy speaks little English and the soldier no Dutch." NAMBLA used the film to justify pedophilic relationships, comparing the fight against child abuse and pedophilia to the persecution of "Jew[s], Gypsy[s], and homosexual[s]."

External links

• For a Lost Soldier at IMDb
• For a Lost Soldier at Rotten Tomatoes
• For a Lost Soldier: An Interview with the film director Roeland Kerbosch [1] Archived 13 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine