The spartan world of Martin Koolhoven's sober, well-made World War II melodrama, "Winter in Wartime," is a rustic blue-gray landscape of woods and snow-covered roads through which armed German soldiers roam in trucks. This handsome film, set in a village in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands and shot in Lithuania, is an adaptation of a semi-
autobiographical 1972 novel by the Dutch author Jan Terlouw, who lived under German occupation for five years.
This coming-of-age story, set in 1945, contemplates the fog of war and the mysteries of adult life through the eyes of 13-year-old Michiel (Martijn Lakemeier).
Telling a story from such a naive perspective cuts two ways. The plot isn't as clearly outlined as you might wish, and character development is necessarily limited to a child's-eye view. At the same time, the movie immerses you in the consciousness of a restless boy desperate for initiation into the rest of his life.
The boy looks up to his dashing Uncle Ben (Yorick van Wageningen), a hearty resistance fighter who appears to have better connections with the local German authorities than his father (Raymond Thiry). Ben isn't exactly what he seems, and "Winter in Wartime" is partly a story of a fallen idol.
Michiel seizes his opportunity to enter the adult sphere after observing from his bedroom window a British plane going down in flames. He visits the crash site with his best friend, Theo (Jesse van Driel), whose older brother Dirk (Mees Peijnenburg) works for the Dutch resistance. Dirk draws Michiel into the movement.
Michiel takes food to the downed pilot (Jamie Campbell Bower), finds him medical care and helps plot his escape.
Once the plan for Jack's escape is hatched, "Winter in Wartime" turns into a moderately gripping thriller with predictable plot twists and reversals.
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