Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

GazerRise Fantastic!

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Aristides-2 Sloppy story; German troops intent on finding a downed Brit pilot and are unsuccessful day after day in the forest where the pilot's been hiding.But the bro and his sister make multiple unobserved daylight trips. (And the moron Germans fail to connect bicycle tracks to a hideaway.) Several times Michiel and/or Erica just drive along the road and find Jack. Screenwriter never heard of hypothermia? Twice people fall into frigid water without any apparent physical harm being done. But then again, there was never any weather cold enough to cause peoples breaths to fog up when they spoke. Plenty of electricity in hero house as well as heat....during wartime yet. Martijn Lakemeier (Michiel) not a bad actor but limited: After seeing his father murdered, hours and days later, he seems unaffected by the memory. Where's the trauma? Jack the pilot way, way too young for the part. My goodness, he's supposed to be a fighter pilot. The botched ferry ambush. Young Jack just knows that something's not right. Where does that instinct come from? And what about the 10 or 12 German riflemen who couldn't hit anything from the far bank? Speaking of the ferry ambush, if the Germans had been tipped off why wasn't there a squad or too on the side of the river where the ferry was tethered? Later on, the horse and buggy can't be overtaken by several German army vehicles. Plus more poor marksmanship including a machine gun shooting from about 100' away. Then the single most absurd thing in the movie: Jack suddenly becomes a championship rodeo performer and while the Germans are driving with their brakes on their vehicles, he jumps onto the horse and pulls Michiel after him. Later, the pursuers not that far away, Caesar is euthanized and the barely muffled shot fails to bring the soldiers to their quarry. Uncle Ben has kept his German sympathies a secret from his brother the mayor. And is stupid enough to keep incriminating evidence in the cheap suitcase? Jack is in the house only for a few hours, is being sought and yet takes the time to have sex with the sister, Erica. Folks, is that a reasonable priority? (No locks on her bedroom door either.) Jack's extremely nasty leg wound seems to heal overnight and there's no sign of a limp or any weakness in the leg. (Able to scale the bottom of a steel bridge like a trapeze artist under the very nose of yet another group of dim Germans.) My final comment is that this movie trivializes some very nasty things that happened in the Netherlands. TV Movie of the Week? Not really since occasionally some of them were not bad.

gradyharp WINTER IN WARTIME (Oorlogswinter) is a stunning and intensely involving film that explores the damages war inflicts on all those involved. It is based on the life of Dutch author Jan Terlouw whose novel by the same name reflects the fact that the author spent five harrowing years under Nazi occupation of Holland in WW II: it has been sensitively and successfully adapted for the screen by Mieke de Jong, Paul Jan Nelissen and writer/director Martin Koolhoven. The title of the film commands every aspect of the story - the colors of a nearly black and white cinematography, the cold atmosphere that intensifies the desperation of war and of coming of age and the bleak aftermath of a war torn country.The time is January 1945. Michiel Van Beusekom (and impressive debut by Martijn Lakemeier) is 13 years old, facing the usual stresses of coming of age accentuated by the fact that his village is occupied by Nazi soldiers. Michiel's father Johan (Raymond Thiry) is the town's Bürgermeister (mayor) and attempts to pacify the Nazis whenever possible to protect his town - a fact that Michiel finds disgusting, as though his father was a Nazi sympathizer. Despite this disparity in viewing the atmosphere in the town, Michiel and Johan have a tender relationship as well. There is a crash of a British RAF plane just outside the town and Michiel and his friends inspect the plane, taking souvenirs, and then finding that the pilot Jack (Jamie Campbell Bower - now King Arthur in the television series Camelot) survived but is wounded. Michiel and Jack become friends and Michiel brings his sister Erica (Melody Klaver) who is a nurse to tend to the leg wound Jack incurred as he parachuted to safety. Erica and Jack form a relationship beyond nurse/patient status and Jack gives Michiel a package that is to be sent to England.In the midst of the action Michiel's favorite uncle Ben (Yorick van Wageningen) arrives and moves in with the family: he is apparently hiding from the Nazis and becomes Michiel's confidant in his care of the British pilot. Michiel thus becomes a part of the resistance movement and when the Nazis discover a dead comrade (a Nazi killed by Jack when he crashed landed) they intensify their search for traitors. Michiel works to help Jack escape, but someone must pay for the death of a Nazi soldier and it is the revelation of the family's surprising response that brings the film to a nail-biting close. The secrets of who is honest and who is a traitor become apparent. Michiel has become the hero of the story but at a very high price - the price of human conflict that war demands and receives.The cast is thoroughly solid and it is refreshing to note that the humanistic sides of both the Dutch villagers and the Nazi occupiers are made evident instead of the usual bad guy/good guy stereotypes. This is another fine movie about WW II and the effects of that heinous time on the youth who survived it. Highly recommended. In Dutch and German and English with English subtitles.Grady Harp

Tony Heck "Dirk should never have got you involved." After 14 year old Dutch boy Michael (Lakemeier) finds a wounded British soldier during WWII he has to pick a side, resistance or appease the Nazi's. This is a very good coming of age story. It shows how a 14 year old in a war zone is forced to grow up earlier then he should and how he deals with hiding the fact that he is helping "the enemy" from everyone, even his family. The title of the movie is deceiving, to me anyway. There is not a typical war movie, in the fact that there is no actual fighting. It is set around a boy and the part of the war that we don't usually see. This is a very good movie, but this is another one that is not for everyone. It is a little slow moving in parts, but as a foreign movie that is expected. The acting by the boy is very very good and at 17 years old looks to have a long career ahead of him. Overall, a very, very well done movie that deserves to be seen. One of the most dramatic war movies I have seen. I like it. I give it a B.Would I watch it again? - I don't think I would, but it was good.*Also try - Enemy At The Gates

Howard Schumann Based on the autobiographical novel by Dutch author Jan Terlouw who spent five grim years under Nazi occupation and was arrested several times, Martin Koolhoven's Winter in Wartime is the coming-of-age story of a teenager who becomes involved with the Resistance when he helps a wounded RAF soldier hiding from the Germans. Written by Paul Jan Nelissen and Mieke de Jong and set in January 1945 in a small town in Holland (but filmed in Lithuania), the film is seen from the perspective of 13-year-old Michiel who, in addition to dealing with the normal problems of a teenager, must handle his complex feelings towards his father, the town's mayor, euphemistically called a "neutral" or, more directly, a Nazi collaborator. Michiel is played by Martijn Lakemeier who, despite having acted for only two months prior to the film, does a highly creditable job playing the bright but naïve teen.Though his father, Raymond Thiry (Johan Van Beusekom) has the wounded look of someone just caught stealing, he loves his son and the scene where he teaches him how to shave is genuine and quite touching, though Michiel has little respect for his dad's cozy relationship with the German occupiers. The story becomes more involved when Michiel's Uncle Ben (Yorick van Wageningen) shows up and assumes the role of a mentor to the boy, a status abdicated by his father. Though Ben is protective of Michiel and tries to keep him from getting involved, the boy inadvertently becomes part of the resistance when he finds a British soldier, Jack (Jamie Campbell Bower), hiding in an underground bunker deep in the forest and brings him food and together plan his escape.To add more tension, Michiel recruits his sister Erica (Melody Klaver), a nurse, to care for the wounded flier, a meeting that develops into a personal relationship. As the film moves to an unpredictable climax, it becomes challenging for Michiel to fully grasp where people's loyalties really lie, and this lesson is learned the hard way as part of his maturing process. Winter in Wartime avoids the usual Nazi stereotypes and presents the Germans as human beings, though Koolhoven's even-handedness becomes hard to swallow when "friendly" German soldiers stop to help Michiel and Jack repair the broken wheel of a horse-drawn carriage, not asking who they are or where they are going.Though the film is set in occupied territory in the middle of a war, it lacks a gritty look and feel. Koolhoven makes choices that constantly undermine the film's realism such as Michiel running in slow motion towards a firing squad to try and prevent an execution and a lush musical background of soaring violins that does not seem appropriate to the circumstances. In spite of its flaws, Winter in Wartime is an involving story, well acted, and confidently directed. Though they will learn little about the full extent of Nazi brutality, the film should appeal to students seeking to better understand historical events they have only read about in history texts.