WINTER IN WARTIME PORTRAYS THE HEROISM OF A TEENAGER
Winterin Wartime (Oorlogswinter) focuses on 13-year-old Michiel (played by Martijn Lakemeier), the son of the mayor of a small town in the northern Netherlands (though most filming is in Lithuania) who fights the Nazis in January 1945, when Nazis had cut off food supplies to the region in retaliation for a general railway strike ordered by the Dutch government-in-exile. Based on the semibiographical novel by Jan Terlouw, the suspense is real as Michiel discovers Jack (played by Jamie Campbell Bower), a member of the British air force hiding in a bunker in the woods. His then assigns himself the task of helping the Brit survive, bringing his sister Erica (played by Melody Klaver), a nurse, to take care of his wounds, and Michiel tries to provide a way for him to escape from the clutches of the Nazis. However, the unexpected happens. By the end of the film, two close relatives are dead, for which he feels some guilt as he comes of age much earlier than his playmates, and the inevitable end of the war arrives in May. Directed by Martin Koolhoven, Winter in Wartime is a tribute to the indefatigable Dutch in undermining Nazi rule, a cinematic companion to the film classic The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). MH