For a Lost Soldier

For a Lost Soldier 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 deals with the romantic/sexual relationship between an 11-year-old boy (Van Dantzig, portrayed by Maartin Smit) and a Canadian soldier (Andrew Kelley) during the final months leading up to the liberation of the Netherlands from Nazi occupation during World War II. Plot In the 1980s, a middle-aged Jeroen (Jeroen Krabbé) reminisces about 1944, when his 11-year old self (Smit) and other children were sent by their parents to the countryside to escape the effects of World War II. The city suffers from food shortages, with more food available in the country. He stays with an eel fisher's family but, while there is an abundance of food, he suffers from homesickness. Jeroen and his friend Jan go to the ocean and see an American plane in the water; Jan tries to go under but claims there are too many eels and surfaces with a big cut on his thigh. Things change when the village is liberated by Canadian troops. Jeroen meets and befriends Walt Cook (Kelley), a Canadian 20-something soldier. Walt at first treats Jeroen like a younger brother and the boy revels in the attention the soldier showers on him; eventually, their relationship becomes sexual. They also engage in friendly, platonic activities, with Jeroen driving Walt's jeep and cleaning his guns. Jeroen's foster parents are aware of the closeness between the boy and Walt, but it is left ambiguous whether they are aware of the sexual nature of the relationship. After a few more days, Walt's unit is ordered to move and Walt leaves without saying goodbye. Jeroen hears from his foster sisters that the soldiers are leaving and rushes to their billet but finds that they have already left. (The film suggests that Walt attempts to tell Jeroen's foster father the previous evening that the troops would be leaving, but gives up when the language barrier becomes obvious.) Jeroen searches throughout town, unable to find any trace of Walt, and is further devastated when he returns home and sees that the shirt where he had stored a photo of Walt was on a clothesline in the rain, ruining the photo. Later that night, Jeroen is lying awake in his bed and notices Walt's dog tag on a scarecrow that had posed as "Walt" in a photo with his foster family, and races outside to grab the tag.