
Martijn Lakemeier plays the resistance fighter hero of superb coming-of-age Dutch drama "Winter in Wartime"
by Sam Juliano
The plight of Holland during the terrible days of the Third Reich invariably leads to the real-life story of Anne Frank, a gifted 13 year old, who with her family, were captured and sent off to concentration camps in the waning days of the second world war. The diary she left behind, which stands as an amazingly perceptive coming-of-age testament, has served as an inspiration for schoolchildren in the intervening decades, and as a lasting monument to the irrepressible human spirit. Director Martin Koolhaven’s Winter in Wartime, (Oorlogswinter) a visually arresting Dutch film made a few years ago contains a number of themes that invite comparisons with the Frank document: age of the main character, betrayal, concealment and maturation in a time of oppression only months before the war’s conclusion. The major difference aside from the fact vs. fiction aspect is one that will be left unrevealed in fear of violating the film’s narrative aesthetic even taking into account the spoilers chronicled in this review.
Set in a village in the Netherlands in wintry January, the film presents the point-of-view of 13 year-old Michiel (Martijn Lakemeier) the uncooperative son of a Nazi collaborator father, who is Mayor of the town. A sense of urgency is imparted in the perspective of having all the events of the film unfold through the boys’ eyes, even accentuating that view by including a number of shots of Michiel looking at other characters through holes and narrow openings. Indeed it’s what gives this film it’s power and singular focus, in large measure due to the increasing awareness shared by the protagonist and the audience. And setting plays a large role in advancing the plot. In this sense the expansive, unmitigated whiteness that is seen in the vast majority of the film’s outdoor sequences serves as a thematic contrast to the caliginous hues of war. (more…)