# For a Lost Soldier

For a Lost Soldier (Dutch: Voor een Verloren Soldaat) is a 1992 Dutch coming-of-age romantic drama film directed by Roeland Kerbosch, based on the autobiographical novel of the same title by ballet dancer and choreographer Rudi van Dantzig. It is centered around an adult Canadian soldier (Andrew Kelley) who meets a young Dutch boy (Maarten Smit) in rural 1945 Holland. They experience a romantic and sexual relationship during the liberation of the Netherlands from Nazi occupation.

## Plot

In the 1980s, middle-aged ballet dancer and choreographer Jeroen feels dissatisfied with his dancers' interpretation of an autobiographical ballet about Canada's liberation of the Netherlands in 1945. In his office, he shows his colleague Laura a photo of himself as a 12-year-old with his foster family during WWII. A document and vintage sunglasses on his desk reveal he is searching for a Canadian soldier named Walt. Jeroen decides to visit the village where he lived with his foster family, bringing the sunglasses and engaging in mental “conversations” with his teenage self. During the first, the story shifts to 1944.
At 11, Jeroen is sent to a foster family in the countryside to escape hunger. Despite a mix-up—they wanted a girl—they treat him kindly. On his first night, he wets the bed while sharing it with Henk, his foster parents' slightly older son, and begins to realize he is gay. When a Canadian warplane crashes near the village beach, Jeroen becomes fascinated. He and his bisexual friend Jan try to explore the wreck but fail.
When Canadian liberators arrive, Jeroen meets Walt, a soldier, and they begin flirting. At a party, they secretly dance, and Jeroen is smitten. Later, they meet again, and Jeroen accompanies Walt to the soldiers' hotel. They join others at the beach, but when the group leaves, Jeroen shows Walt the crashed plane. They return to the hotel to retrieve a jeep, but Walt’s comrades have disabled it. Walt sneaks inside to fix it and showers before rejoining Jeroen, who waits outside. Jeroen enters Walt’s room, and they have sex.
The next Sunday, Jeroen confidently fends off another assault attempt by Jan. He and Walt meet at a church service, explore the plane wreck, and Walt gives Jeroen a driving lesson. While Walt sleeps after they have sex again, Jeroen takes one of his photos and hides it in his shirt. Later, Walt waits in Jeroen's foster family's garden to take a photo. Disappointed Walt cannot be in it, Jeroen uses a scarecrow as his “double” by placing Walt's identification tag around its neck. Walt's comrades arrive and suggest a group photo with Jeroen's foster family. While developing the photos, Jeroen ruins the negative. He comforts Walt, promising they will always be together, unaware Walt is leaving the next day. That night, Walt tries to ask Jeroen's foster father, Hait, to explain his departure, but Hait does not understand.
The next day, Jeroen overhears his older foster sister discussing the soldiers' departure. Devastated, he pushes his younger foster sister off her bike and searches for Walt. Returning home, he sees his older foster sister hanging laundry, including the shirt with Walt’s ruined photo. Heartbroken, Jeroen is woken by a storm and mistakes the scarecrow for wearing Walt's tag. Running outside, he impales his hand on barbed wire. Hait finds him and burns the scarecrow the next morning, discovering Walt's forgotten sunglasses. Later, Jeroen receives a letter from his mother, not Walt, and breaks down by the sea. When his mother comes to take Jeroen back home, Hait comforts him and secretly places Walt's camera films in Jeroen's suitcase, giving the sunglasses to Jeroen's mother to pass on later. As they leave, Hait asks Jeroen to send him a photo of them together. Jeroen recalls his teenage heartbreak and mentally tells his younger self that he does not remember Hait's words, but his teenage self admits he heard them and chose to forget.
Back in the 1980s, a content Jeroen encourages his dancers during their final rehearsal. As he watches them perform, Laura hands him an envelope containing an enlarged photo of himself and his foster family. Beneath it is a zoomed image of Walt's identification tag, revealing his contact information.

## Cast

* Maarten Smit as Jeroen Boman (child)
* Jeroen Krabbé as Jeroen Boman (adult)
* Andrew Kelley as Walter Cook
* Freark Smink [nl] as Hait
* Elsje de Wijn [nl] as Mem
* Derk-Jan Kroon as Jan
* Wiendelt Hooijer as Henk
* Iris Misset as Bonden
* Gineke de Jager as Elly
* Tatum Dagelet [nl] as Gertie
* Marie-José Kouwenhoven as Renske
* Valerie Valentine as Laura
* William Sutton as Chuck
* Andrew Butling as Buikspreker
* Andrew Cassani as Winslow

## Reception

Despite its controversial themes, Kerbosch said that the film was broadly accepted. "In Holland, audiences just took it as a love story," he said. "And that's also what happened in New York, because it's a love story, a beautiful and romantic one at that."
Stephen Holden of The New York Times praised the film's "refusal to load the story with contemporary psychological and social baggage" but wrote that the film was unable to achieve a "coherent dramatic frame". He added that the film does not insinuate Walt was responsible for harming Jeroen or had abused Jeroen, and also that within the work "is no mention of homosexuality."
Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote that due to a lack of clarity over the homosexual themes, the film "delves into issues far too serious and controversial for such questions to go unanswered." He also stated that the confusion over language, as the film is partially in English and partially in Dutch, may have caused it to "lack crucial clarity," despite good acting.
While Desmond Ryan of The Philadelphia Inquirer called the film "an acutely observed portrait of adolescent yearning", he criticized the film's opaque ending, saying, "What was evenhanded becomes simply open-ended."
The North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), a pedophilia advocacy organization, praised the film, focusing on the relationship between the adult and child. "We see man and boy kissing, stripping naked, showering, climbing under the covers. There is one long, lovingly photographed close-up of the boy's face as the soldier, lying upon him, penetrates him anally. All of this is handled in perfect taste, of necessity with a minimum of words, since the boy speaks little English and the soldier no Dutch." NAMBLA used the film to justify pedophilic relationships, comparing the fight against child abuse and pedophilia to the persecution of "Jew[s], Gypsy[s], and homosexual[s]."