The soldier of Orange
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The soldier of Orange |
| Original title | Soldier van Oranje |
| Country of production | Belgium , Netherlands |
| original language | Dutch , English , German |
| Publishing year | 1977 |
| length | 155 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Paul Verhoeven |
| script |
Gerard Soeteman , Paul Verhoeven, Kees Holierhoek |
| production | Rob Houwer |
| music | Rogier van Otterloo |
| camera | Jost Vacano |
| cut | Jane Sperr |
| occupation | |
| |
The Soldier of Oranien (also Soldiers ; original title: Soldaat van Oranje ) is a Belgian-Dutch, epic film drama from 1977 directed by Paul Verhoeven , produced by Rob Houwer and starring Rutger Hauer and Jeroen Krabbé . The film takes place during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II and focuses on the fate of a group of students who typically lived during the war.
action
The Netherlands in 1938: Erik Lanshof and his friends Jacques, Nico and Alex begin their studies at the University of Leiden . You go through the humiliating acceptance ceremony in a student brotherhood, which is led by Guus LeJeune and to which the Jew Jan Weinberg also belongs. Since Guus inflicted a head injury to Erik at the ceremony, he is in his favor. So Guus offers to take Erik into his luxurious student apartment and a good friendship develops between the two. During a tennis match, the group of students learns from an English radio station that Great Britain has entered the Second World War . Alex, whose mother is German, and Jan are serving together in the Dutch army when it is attacked by the Wehrmacht the following year . Erik and Guus try unsuccessfully to join the army during the fighting. During this time, Alex's parents are interned as potential traitors. After the surrender of the Dutch armed forces , Alex joins the Waffen SS . Erik, Nico, Jan and Guus begin with underground activities independently of each other. In the unsuccessful attempt to transfer secret documents to Great Britain by plane, Jan ends up in German captivity, in which he is finally fusilated without having disclosed any information . Erik is arrested during a raid by German security forces on the tennis court. However, he was released shortly afterwards, with the SS aiming to gain more information through his shadowing.
With Nico's help, Erik managed to escape into exile in England in London on a steamer sailing under the Swiss flag . Guus escapes on the same steamer. In London they receive a dangerous secret mission from Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, which leads them both back to the Netherlands. They are supposed to smuggle high-ranking politicians and military leaders to the Queen in London. On the Dutch side, the action is supported by Nico. Robby, an old friend of Erik's, who is now collaborating with the Germans to save his Jewish fiancée Esther from going to the concentration camp , also provides supposed support . Robby helps the Germans to lead the command into an ambush and the company ends in a fiasco on the beach in Scheveningen . Nico and some of the politicians are shot on the beach, Guus escapes along the surf and only Erik gets back to England. In The Hague , Guus later avenges Robby's betrayal by shooting him from a bicycle on the street. However, he is arrested. His life is ended in a German concentration camp by the guillotine . Back in England, Erik begins his fight as a Royal Air Force pilot , bombing German cities.
On May 5, 1945, the day of the liberation of the Netherlands, Erik accompanied the Queen back home as personal adjutant, where she was enthusiastically received by the people. There he meets the two survivors of his circle of friends. Esther's hair was shorn by her compatriots in front of her house as a sign of their collaboration with the occupiers. Later that evening, Erik visits Jacques ten Brink, who now lives in Guus' former student apartment. During the war, Jacques was able to come to terms with the political circumstances and continue his work at the university. On the day of liberation he too is in a celebratory mood, happy to be able to leave the bad days behind and proud of the visit of his heroic friend. However, it would appear that Erik feels alienated from his old-time friend.
History of origin
Verhoeven's directorial work is an adaptation of Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema's autobiographical novel Het hol van de ratelslang , which was published in 1970 in the Netherlands. The resistance fighter (1917–2007) also took part in the shooting. Like Hazelhoff Roelfzema, director Verhoeven had studied at the University of Leiden and belonged to the same brotherhood.
The Soldier of Orange was the most expensive film in the country to date, with a budget of 2.5 million US dollars (five million Dutch guilders). There are different versions of the film, from three and a half hour four-part films to 110-minute fiction films.
Reviews
With films such as Turkish Fruits (1973) or The Soldier of Orange , Verhoeven became the most commercially successful Dutch director of the 1970s and 1980s. In her contemporary film review , Janet Maslin ( The New York Times ) praised the film not as “great art” but as a “good story” and referred to Verhoeven's “calming old-fashioned narrative” and Rutger Hauer's “unexpectedly brittle presentation”. "Although the script gives him every opportunity to become a matinee idol, Mr. Hauer shows little interest in being glamorous, and that's fascinating in itself," says Maslin. The German-language lexicon of international films rated Der Soldat von Oranien as "an entertaining and serious film with some drastic scenes that asks questions about complicity and responsibility, but seems a bit bumpy because of the considerable cuts in the original 155-minute version."
"The film has its climax where it takes up the social issues in Holland at that time in minute detail", says the Dutch film scholar Ernest Mathijs. “Every character is a microcosm of society. We learn in detail how the war changes people and their opinions - as if the director wanted us not to judge, but to understand the motives of friend and foe. "
Awards
Soldier of Orange was in 1979 with the price of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association as Best Foreign Language Film Award. A year later, the film received a Golden Globe nomination in the same category, but fell short of French entry A Cage Full of Fools .
literature
- Hazelhoff Roelfzema, Erik: Soldaat van Oranje . Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 2005. - ISBN 9789027415325
Web links
- Soldier of Orange in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. Paul Verhoeven . In: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 39/2008 from September 23, 2008, supplemented by news from MA-Journal until week 15/2009 (accessed on August 23, 2009 via Munzinger Online)
- ↑ a b cf. Film review by Janet Maslin in the New York Times, August 16, 1979
- ↑ cf. Film review ( memento of the original from September 28, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. by Andreas Eckenfels at filmreporter.de (accessed on 23 August 2009)
- ↑ cf. Film review by Lukas Foerster on critic.de (accessed on 23 August 2009)
- ↑ cf. Beier, Lars Olav; Wolf, Martin: "Sex is totally overrated" . In: Der Spiegel , 36/2006 of September 4, 2006, p. 172
- ↑ The Soldier of Orange in the Lexicon of International Films
- ↑ cf. Mathijs, Ernest: The soldier of Orange . In: Schneider, Steven Jay (ed.): 1001 films: the best films of all time . Hombrechtikon / Zurich: Ed. Olms, 2005. - ISBN 3-283-00525-7 . P. 638
