StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Bene Cumb Having lived and worked in the Netherlands and knowing its language, I have been interested in the Dutch cinema as well, particularly if Rutger Hauer or Jeroen Krabbé present. There have lots of films on the WWII been made, nicely versatile ones, as the period was one of the most painful and complex in the country's history. Thus, I was eager to learn how the war era was made compatible with such a sensitive topic like man-boy relationship.But the latter was not much visible in Voor een verloren soldaat (perhaps in the autobiographical novel of the same title - I have not read that); it was even not clearly visible if there was some mutual erotics at all. What we saw was a 20+ years foreign soldier acting as a caring mentor, showing a boy far from home and family new angles of life; besides, I do not believe that showing affection towards a boy would have been normally accepted by both the religious Dutchmen and militant Canadians in those days...Anyway, the mood in the film is pleasant, performances realistic, and viewers obtain a nice overview of Friesland under slackening Nazi occupation. But do not try to find any sensationalism, as mentioned, it is a good depiction of friendship - with some affection - during a war period when many things and deeds are perceived in another way.

sandover It must be something of an achievement that a film with such a supposedly touchy subject matter, can be such an embarrassment to some, a hailed effort without any positive content, and actually a subtle negation.Negation is meant here as the psychoanalytic term that marks the way humans in their speech deny: of course the woman in my dream was NOT my mother, goes the usual Freudian example - and here we must be very precise in that negation is on the side of the form and not on the content, that is it is the syllogistic form in abstract that pinpoints to the fact that this figure is a mother figure one, and not a defense of the dream's content. To put it in simpler terms, if it is not your mother, why are you telling me so? I made this little excursion into that field (pun) because almost the unanimity of reviewers defended the film, even if - and that was for me the really bizarre part - those who detected the film's failure to engage, had a certain nostalgic tone not to find the film without merit. Why? The film is bad, bad in the Oscar Wilde way of "all bad poetry is sincere." Take the soundtrack: it was some time I haven't heard, or rather was submitted to a soundtrack that hasn't got a clue where to be put, where to stay and what to say. Like a distant relative of Mahler's symphonic sensibility it comes and goes without any association. And in one scene after some kind of romantic consummation, to put it that way, the theme is taken on by a saxophone waxing and waining. Quite insensible, if not inane.As the script's elaboration. Take some scenes between Jeroen and Walt, put in Jeroen's place an adult, and tell me if the script, avoiding its subject, does not have in mind an adult instead of a pre-adolescent boy, and add to that the ludicrous, bathetic exclamations of the soldier: "The moment I saw you I knew you were special" - this is my favorite, along with the twice said "Are you making fun of me?" in a DeNiro Taxi-Driver bad and perhaps intended imitation. I did not know one flirts boys like that. Or, one actually is such a lame actor.The approach is not subtle concerning the first stages of the flirt, it is a headlong fixing of the soldier to the boy, followed by a gross (fantasy?) dance on the preposterous premise of the two of them left alone on the dance floor.So, let's face the crux of the matter: given a mediocre film, why people defend it, even if they admit that it seriously lacks in important departments, that is character development, engaging the viewer etc? This is a specific form of disavowal, the "I know very well, but..." kind. What is at stake here? I know the film is bad but I want to defend it - is there a fundamental fantasy at play, like a pre-adolescent fixation the film recalls (the hunk-soldier syndrome?) in some viewers? I really can't say, and in the end it does not matter: let anyone have what kind of fantasy he or she wishes. The film actually proves in a way that pederasty is daemonized because we cannot put a limit, a threshold on the age one starts being sexually active and what that means; but it doesn't unbound its aesthetic approach, and a half-baked abject jelly falls allover the place.

ninoguapo I have to admit that I haven't read the book and after reading comments about it – I am not sure that I will read it at all. The movie however is superb. I have watched it several times by now – with friends of mine and alone. The main character is a young Dutch boy - Jeroen, played by Maarten Smit . He falls in love with Canadian soldier during the time he spends away from Amsterdam in a small village. He is send there by his mother, in order to avoid the starvation in the big Dutch cities during the world war when the food there was never enough.While watching this movie – you will have to decide for yourself if the relationship presented in the movie is acceptable to you or not. The theme song stuck in my mind – as well as and one of my favorite scenes in which Jeroen and Walt run in the field in a very unique way. To me this movie is mainly about friendship, then love – the relationship with Walt made the boy happy, just look the way he smiles when they have their picture taken in one of the scenes. At the same time the ending leaves some questions unanswered- both to the boys and to me as a viewer – was the Canadian soldier just taking an advantage of the boy? And if that is the case I will be disgusted from him. But what if he really loved – but then why he left him? As the movie focuses on the memories of Jeroen , we see that even as an adult he hasn't forget his hero- so there was love and one can only hope this feeling was shared by both main characters.

bill-894 A friend urged me to watch this movie and I did so with absolutely no idea of what it was about.Everything others have said about it is true but still I feel very uneasy about the subject matter and the "acceptable" way in which it is portrayed.This little boy is just that, a little boy and whether you're straight or gay, relationships between adults and children are taboo. The validity of that taboo can be argued but it exists not to protect the adult but to protect the child.An interesting movie but the subject matter prevents it from being great.