"For a lost soldier"

I read about this movie a year ago from internet: a friendship/love story between a Dutch boy and a Canadian solider by the end of WWII. Very unique and daring subject! So, when I found it in the DVD collection of my friends A & F, I immidiately borrowed it.

The first part of this movie is a little bit slow, but it is worth the time because it makes the audiance to understand the dutch boy's situation before the solider's appearance: His mother sent him to a farmer's home to avoid the food shortage in Amsterdam; He can barely fit into the new family although his step parents are good people; He is on the edge of sexual waking, and more confusingly and frustratingly, only to find he has an interest totally different with his buddies. In one word, despite so many step brothers/sisters and a friend (also from Amsterdam), he is all alone, INSIDE. And you can see his loneliness through his eyes.

Before seeing it, I thought the relationship between the boy and the solider is only spiritual, at most subconsciously physical/sexual. Or, the boy is seeking a protection from a father figure which he confuses with love, while the solider does not realize it at all. But the movie told me I was wrong: it is more straightfoward and daring than that. They do love each other sexually (as well as emotionally) and they do have sex (at least once in the movie)! Actually, this is what's so amazing about this movie: it handled this difficult subject with so "remarkable delicacy and considerable grace" that it doesn't feel lurid, at least to me.

Considering all the media fuss about child molestation and child pornography in Canada (not to mention U.S.), this movie is bound to raise a few eyebrows or even outrage many botton-down people. No matter you are gay or straight, the bottom line is that you can't help but ask yourself "if such relationships are intrinsically abusive or if they might, in extraordinary instances, have validity and even integrity" (GFT, Amazon Reviewer).

Of course, different people will answer that differently. But for me, since I myself have been under the same situation as the boy (except the good part: a sexy solider), my answer is: it is NOT abusive in any sense. I can still vividly recall my feeling when I was at grad 5 of elementary school, when all "good" students cross the grade were picked out to form a class to get some "special" last minute training. In this new class, there was a classmate, who not ony looked like a young man instead of a boy but also smiled like a big brother, always warming and intriguing to me. Someday, out of blue, I started feeling strangely excited, anxious and a little bit sweet when he was around. Day after day, it got worse and worse. And before I realized what it was, it had become a daily torture to me because I desperately hoped he would talk to me but I never dared to initiate a talk. For some days, I felt so happy simply because he smiled to me. And for some other days, I felt so low because I failed to catch his attention. Yes, I was 12 at that time, almost same age as the boy in the movie.

So, speaking for myself, if there were a soldier coming to me and gave me love when I was 12, I would never say I was taken advantage of (or abused). I would be grateful for my whole life.

For some children, they know exactly what they want.