Category Archives: WWII

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Winter in Wartime aka Oorlogswinter (2008) Resistance in Occupied Holland

Winter in Wartime is a Dutch-Belgian co-production filmed in three languages, German, Dutch and English. The same producers who did the outstanding movie Zwart Boek aka Black Book did also this one. There are some resemblances picture wise but apart from that the two movies are very different. Winter in Wartime is to be classified among the long list of Children in War Movies (please see my post Children in War Movies).

Michiel, a young boy of 14 years, gets drawn into the Dutch Resistance after one of his older friends, an active member of the Resistance, gets shot. Michiel takes it upon himself to help a young RAF pilot who has been shot down in the woods near his village. As young as he is Michiel has a strong sense of right and wrong and despises his father whom he accuses of collaborating with the Germans. He idealizes his uncle Ben who thinks his brother is a coward.

Occupied Holland is swarming with Germans. It is extremely dangerous for Michiel to help the young injured British soldier and he has to let his sister who is a nurse in on his secret. After a German soldier is found shot in the woods the Germans arrest Michiel’s father. Although his uncle says he can help him, the father is shot.

Michiel’s only mission from then on is to save his the young pilot. The ywill attempt to flee several times. Michiel will learn a few important lessons and come out wizened of this experience.

The movie is very beautiful as we see long takes on the snow-covered Dutch countryside. Snow flakes fall softly in many a scene, the whiteness of the woods builds a stark contrast to the dark uniforms of the Germans. Michiel is a wonderful character. Such a young boy with such an incredible idealism and courage. The young actor, Martijn Lakemeier, did a great job. So did  Jamie Campbell Bower as the pilot Jack. I also liked the relationship between the boy and his father or rather how the opinion the boy is change through the events. Apart from that I’m not too sure about this movie. You could watch it with very young people or children to teach them something about the war and values but I think it is too much of a purely invented story and does lack realism. If you watch it you will understand what I mean. There are a few things that just seem extremely farfetched.

Don’t get me wrong, it is watchable. Just not great. If you have never seen a movie on Dutch Resistance, go for Black Book. If you’d like to watch something on Nordic Resistance, try Max Manus or Flame & Citron. All three are great. This one is probably a 3.5-4.

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The Guns of Navarone (1961): A Great War Adventure Movie

Some movies age well. Others don´t. The Guns of Navarone,  a splendid UK/US co-production, is one of the first kind. Almost 50 years old but still fresh like on the day it came out. This is thanks to a  lot of things. A gripping story, a great cast (Gregory Peck, David Niven, Anthony Quinn, Irene Papas, Stanley Baker, Anthony Quayle), wonderful cinematography, a nice score. What more do you want from a good war adventure yarn? I hadn’t  seen it before (yes, yes, shame on me) and was really surprised how good it is. And very esthetic. It is one of the most esthetic movies I have ever seen.

The year is 1943. Greece is occupied by Germany.  The Germans who feel they are losing on the Eastern Front try to force Turkey to join them. The Guns of Navarone tells us how a group of men tries to secretly enter a Greek island, meet with the Greek resistance and with their help sneak into a fortress to destroy two powerful German guns that threaten British soldiers who are marooned on another island. The mission is extremely dangerous and no one actually thinks they might accomplish it.

The story, from the beginning to the end, is one gripping sequence after the other. Each one of them could almost stand alone like some sort of short story. First they fight the elements on a boat during a storm. Then they have to climb an impossibly steep rock. Every place they find themselves in is swarming with Germans so they have to hide often.  In one episode one of them gets wounded and they need to decide if they take him along or shoot him. One of them betrays them and they need to decide whether or not to shoot the person. They get captured by the Germans but escape. Many things go wrong and not all of them make it. The best scenes for me are in the fortress. We hear a German song in the background and see this bunker with its typical Nazi esthetics.

It is also a funny movie at times as the German´s really get their asses kicked. In one scene the group is hiding and a German guard hears them. To distract  him they throw something and he runs off like a dog.

There is also some humorous dialogue mostly coming from the stiff-upperlipped British major played by David Niven.

The characters are well drawn, interesting and complex. Major Mallory (Peck) is a mountaineer whose expertise is needed for the mission. Miller (Niven) is an expert in explosives. Stanley Barker plays a trained killer who has problems with his conscience. I was quite surprised to see Irene Papas, the Greek singer, in one of the roles. I didn’t even know she acted. She plays a Greek resistance fighter. Quite a fierce character. Gia Scala´s role Anna is interesting and what happened to her illustrates once more the idea of the absurdity of war.

This movie made me quite nostalgic. You don’t find many movies like this anymore. And no actors like these either.

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The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008) or An unusual look at the Holocaust

The movie The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is based on a novel by John Boyne.

The movie tells the story of Bruno, an eight year old boy, whose father is a high ranking Nazi officer newly appointed to be in charge of a concentration camp.

The family leaves Berlin (shot in Budapest, by the way) for a place somewhere in the country, near a concentration camp. The story is purely seen through the eyes of the little boy which creates some very uneasy moments.

I believe that the major theme of this movie is knowing and knowledge. We do know what happened during the third Reich. We know what Endlösung – The Final Solution – means. We know about concentration camps and extermination camps. Watching this movie with all this background information makes for a lot of discomforting moments. All the signs, the chimneys and the smoke, the people in the striped pyjamas… We know what to make of them. Bruno does not. And neither does his mother as it would seem.

The crucial moment is when Bruno meets the boy behind the barbed wire, the boy in the striped pyjamas, Shmuel. An impossible friendship begins. Bruno understands after a while that this boy is a Jew; at the same time he is taught by a fanatic private tutor that Jews are vermin.

Boyne says in an interview that he wanted to tell a different story, add something new to a topic that has been taken up so many times. He is very successful. One thing is for sure, no one who watches The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is going to forget it easily. The whole way it is told plus the more than atrocious end is by far too unusual to be forgotten.

I am sure it is one of the best movies to teach children the Holocaust.

To be honest, I am still a bit speechless. The whole film and especially the ending are like being kicked in the gut. I am quite awed by the little actors. Asa Butterfield, who plays Bruno, is amazing. This little kid has a way of talking with his eyes that is rarely found in grown up actors. To cut a long story short: Watch it!

See also Children in War Movies: A List

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Taking Sides (2001) or The Denazification of a Legend

Istvan Szabo’s Taking Sides tells the story of the so-called Denazification of one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, Helmut Furtwängler. (As can be read in the Jewish Virtual Library Denazification was the name given to “the efforts made by the Allies to remove active members of the former National Socialist Party from official public office and influential positions in Germany after World War II.”). The events take place in post-war Berlin. Furtwängler was the conductor of the Berlin Philarmonic. Before going to trial he is being questioned by an American investigator, Major Arnold, who shows no mercy and treats him not much different from the way the Gestapo treated people they questioned. Whatever Furtwängler says is taken against him. When he has nothing to say it is taken against him as well. This is a witch-hunt. There is not much action in this movie that’s why the two actors had to be extremely good. And they are. Harvey Keitel as the self-righteous Major who conducts the investigation is excellent. But Stellan Skarsgard starring as Furtwängler is amazing. This is sublime acting. I always liked him but in this movie he proves to be capable of acting far beyond the average.

Furtwängler is accused to have been a member of the Nazi party, to have been friends with Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels. To have known what was going on but to choose to stay anyway. It becomes soon clear that none of this is true and therefore Major Arnold tries to prove him at least morally guilty. Even though he has helped many Jews to escape, Arnold thinks his staying is reproachable. There is a lot of food for thought in this movie. Furtwängler seems to have believed that music and art could better people and that it was his duty to stay. But he was also naïve to an incredible extent. An intellectual living in an ivory tower.

Before starting to question him and during the weeks of the interrogation Arnold watches movies of the concentration camps. The original footage we get to see is one of the most horrible I ever seen. A huge mass of naked emaciated bodies are being shoved away like dirt… This fuels Arnolds’s hatred and lets him lose the right perspective.

One of the best elements of the movie is the clash of these two personalities; the gentle, well-mannered, soft-spoken old-world artist and the aggressive, vulgar and ignorant American major.

The movie does not only take place in the interrogation room. We follow the two young assistants of the major (played by Moritz Bleibtreu and Birgit Minichmayr), both German, one of Jewish origin and just returned from the States, on their outings in the city. This adds a further dimension to the film and we get a feel for post-war Berlin.

Taking Sides has also one of the most beautiful moments I have ever seen in a war movie. In an eerily beautiful scene we see an orchestra play in a ruin in the pouring rain.

As stated before, apart from being interesting, fascinating and underlined by beautiful classical recordings (Beethoven, Bruckner) this movie lives from the actors. The leading actors are outstanding but the supporting actors are very good too.

At times Taking Sides reminded me of Judgement at Nuremberg.

This is a movie for people interested in the post-war era, Denazification, classical music, Furtwängler and moral questions tied to WWII Germany. Is it understandable that Furtwängler stayed? Would it have been worse if all the good people had left? Are we allowed to think of self-preservation when faced with the mass destruction of others?

Instead of a trailer I decided to include a scene from the movie.

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The Tuskegee Airmen (1995) or The True Story of the 332nd all Black Fighter Squadron

The Tuskegee Airmen is one of those brilliant HBO TV movies that is far too less known. How often do you watch a war movie that leaves you cheerful at its end? Well that´s what will happen should you watch The Tuskegee Airmen. It is fun. It is uplifting. It is a tale of heroism, determination, skill and overcoming the biggest obstacles that you can possible face: ridicule, racism, discrimination. Watching this movie is also infuriating like any story belittling others for their race, color, gender, social background etc. The Tuskegee Airmen is a true story that has almost a fairytale ending. I am not saying it doesn’t have its very sad moments, no true war story goes without them, but all through the movie we admire the spirit of those who do not give up, no matter how intense the adversity.  They are winners in the end.

At the beginning of the movie a group of young black Americans is boarding a train to Tuskegee, the base where future fighter pilots are trained. Some of them are already experienced pilots, others are aspiring pilots. They join because they share a passion for aircraft but also because they want to serve their country. But the moment they arrive in Tuskegee they face racial discrimination of the worst kind. They have to take the tests they already took  again because the result were too good. And when they prove that they know more than other pilots they are still not taken seriously and told that they don’t have a country, that they are not welcome. After several months of training and outstanding results they are not allowed to go overseas as there are still so many people, including politicians, who think it is unacceptable a black person should fly a highly sophisticated aircraft. Only after Mrs. Roosevelt flies with one of them, are they finally sent off to Africa. In Africa the same story repeats itself all over again. White pilots are sent on missions, while the Tuskegee Airmen  are being held back and ridiculed. Finally they are given a chance and  are told to escort a bomber squadron. They do this so well that the white bomber pilots do not believe that black pilots flew the planes. In the end the bomber squadron has to accept that the finest American pilots are black pilots and ask especially for them to escort them when they fly an attack on Berlin. It is said that in none of their missions did they lose one single bomber. An outstanding result.

I read that this movie and the story behind it filled many an African-American viewer with pride. I can sure understand this. There are so many glorious moments in this film and it really cheers you up when those brilliant pilots are finally acknowledged and rewarded with medals.

The cast was well chosen. Laurence Fishburn stars in one of his more likable roles. Cuba Gooding Jr. is in it, as well as Allan Payne, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Courtney B. Vance and Mekhi Phifer.

I think, you can easily tell, how much I enjoyed this movie.

Should you be interested in the topic of African-American Soldiers in War Movies, please read my post.