Des soldats et des ombres

Story from the colonial territory of dutch indonesia post-ww2, and the ''ethnical'' cleansing of terror cells threatening queen Wilhelminas land and people.

Its a utterly shaking story about a desperate dutch soldier ,who due to his fathers collaboration with the nazis, makes living in holland inhumanely impossible, and with no possible opportunities to get a job or make a living due to traitor blood running through his veins. So he joins the dutch forces of the far east, an edition of an army like the french legionaires, where you are noody and nobody cares what youve done to flee from home.

Its a jungle war movie, its pretty graphic and shocking, and the final scene i didnt see coming. Acting are among the superior that you may find in the pay bass, reminds me of some of the norwegian resistance war movies made in the 2 millenium. Its is slow in periods and splashes the surface , but takes some abrupt deep dives into the matter now and then. There are lots of blood and temporal fragmental eruptions due to summary executions en masse.

Productionwise, it shows that the helmsmen do have experience in the silverscreen craftmanship, the locations are shot in a more palmatic environment than holland can offer. So its not a low budget flick you are in for. Good camera lead, very realistic special effects, and as mentioned a great cast.

On the nether end is the lack of a good timeline, cause there are flashback that makes a grumpy old man confused about where and when. Its also drawn abit long on playtime, but summasummarum, you will be taught and you will be entertained, and you will feel, especially if pure blood dutch, the urge to make some revisions to your own domestic and extraterritorial history curicullum, and it may give some peace on mind to all colonial immigrants of the dutch empire, and may explain some social issues connected to terrorist attakcs done on dutch homeground especially in the 1970's.

A good movie, and ill beg for more revelating movies in the future. Dutch and belgian war movies do get good marks in my movie inventory. A recommend.

The movie starts off great. Not many historical flaws and a very balanced execution between the different perspectives. Sadly, the second part of the movie takes a Tarantino-esq turn in tone and story (like Inglorious Basterds) and this almost ruined the movie for me. Either commit to one style or the other. Furthermore, the second half is extremele unbalanced and depict the Dutch Special Forces troops as coldblooded murders basically the whole time. If you look at the actual historical facts about Westerling, you'd see that alot of nuance is left off the table. The ending is also very strange and basically pure fiction. This wouldn't be a bad thing because Tarantino did this with Inglorious Basterds aswell and that worked out great. However, Tarantino maintained his tone and story throughout the whole movie. This movie does not. Which makes it feel very disjointed.

Speaking of acting, visuals, story and music: The acting is great (for Dutch standards) and the visuals and music are also very good. The story is very well done (for the first half) but then descends into fiction for a big part. Without spoiling it, yes there were alot of war crimes being committed at that time and place, but a whole lot of other stuff was left out. The second half felt like a montage of war crimes by the Dutch special forces without any actual story being told.

All in all, the movie is still good. The first half especially is very much worth the watch. I would still recommend it, just be warned about historical inaccuracies and lack of nuance.

In my opinion this movie missed an opportunity to teach the average viewer about a part of Dutch history which unfortunately is not very well known (and still is debated). The movie is well made, but it left me a bit disappointed. I am of Indonesian decent and was very much excited to see the movie because I'd love to see this topic getting more attention. But it is really a fictional story loosely based on factual characters and events. The central weight of the story lies with the conflicted protagonist and his relation to the antagonist which is only set to a backdrop of Indonesia and their fight for independence. It lightly touches some of the context and background but it has no weight in the movie. It may have caused some viewers to believe that this movie only wishes to show the Dutch were there blatantly killing innocent villagers. Although the Indonesians are almost portrait as Vietcong (yet you won't see any of them shooting even one bullet though). In fact, because the movie only shows violence coming from the Dutch the movie feels very unbalanced if you are knowledgeable about the actual history. I know this movie is not meant to be a documentary but as they have done a good job with visual accuracy I perhaps expected a Schindler's list kind of gripping movie in terms of accuracy.

Going into this movie fully aware of all the drama surrounding it. My tip is don't go into it expecting historical accuracy. We didn't expect accuracy for apocalypse now or 1917. It's a setting for a war movie. And a anti war piece just like the previously named films

That being said, as far as a war movie its okay. Its mostly the usual story of the innocent fng that seems more pure then his compatriots from day one. His degradation as he gets hit with the horrors of war taken to the conclusion of the story.

The sets are beautiful as it is all shot on location and the kit and gear are all amazing. The actors are mostly good, the Turk being a pretty decent Kurtz rip-off. Mostly i am happy, this is a Dutch film made about a subject most people could learn more about, with great production value and some nice use of lights and camera work. The last act is definitely the weakest, but the beginning. Is pretty decent.

I would say: Watch with managed expectations.

This film dares to appear discussing a point of view that many people don't want to explore. About the Dutch in the colonial era of Indonesia. About the colonizing party. And this film presents it with a neutral pov. There is no agenda for glorification or self-defense. This film purely shows the human side experienced by the parties involved. As a war film, however, it follows the formula well. We can say cliche, but still unique thanks to the pov. As an Indonesian, this film is well done.