Adapted from a 1972 novel, this Dutch drama takes a passably nuanced approach to the moral choices engendered by the Nazi occupation, though in this day and age the movie’s shopworn situations and easy reliance on the Third Reich as a symbol of evil add up to another kind of complacency. The 14-year-old protagonist can’t understand why his father, the mayor of their small town, would rather schmooze with the Germans (and use what leverage he has to protect their neighbors) than join the resistance; when the boy learns about an RAF pilot who has crash-landed in the forest, he places his family at risk by conspiring to help the man escape. There’s an interesting scene in which the boy falls through the ice into a freezing lake and, to his chagrin, is hauled out by a Nazi soldier. But for the most part this feels like the second half of The Sound of Music. Martin Koolhoven directed. In English and subtitled German and Dutch.
Winter in Wartime
R • 1 hour 43 min • 2010