Wil

As "Wil" (2023 release from Belgium; 114 min.) opens, we are in "Antwerp, 1942", and the Nazi have occupied the city. We are introduced to Wil and Lode, 2 guys who have just joined the ranks of the Antwerp police. They loathe the Germans but are forced to work with them... At this point we are 10 minutes into the movie.

Couple of comments: this is the latest from writer-producer-director Tim Mielants, bringing the best-selling novel of the same name by Jeroen Olyslaegers to the big screen. I have not read the book and hence cannot comment how closely the film stick to the book. What I do know is this: this is a hard-hitting movie about the moral dilemmas of people who are put into an. Impossible position. Beware: there are several scenes of violence and worse that are sure to make you feel uncomfortable. There is no sugarcoating of what life was like under Nazi occupation. As a complete aside: I hail from Antwerp, Belgium (but now a longtime resident in the US) and I can't help but feel a little disappointed how little of the actual city is shown in the movie. "Wil" was a runaway success in Flanders, Belgium last year (sold the most tickets of any film released there in 2023; also just swept the local equivalent of the Oscars).

"Wil" premiered in Belgium last September, and it just started streaming on Netflix here. If you are in the mood for a tense movie that is heavy on moral issues of Nazi occupation in WWII, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

There's probably deliberate ambiguity in the title of this Belgian-made film about the wartime German occupation of Antwerp, with a double-meaning of the central character's name and ultimately his will for self-preservation in deciding between conscience and sacrifice when your life and more importantly, those of others, depends on it.

It's 1941 and we're immediately dropped in on the German Army overseeing their control of the city police force. It's an uneasy time and it's clear the captain in charge is no German lapdog. Later, on his way to work at night in absolutely filthy weather along with his friend and fellow-cop Lode, is the young, recently inducted Wil. Corralled by a German soldier into accompanying him in rooting out a family of Jews, both the young men are immediately tested by subsequent events and come down in favour of the angels in rescuing the family, but their intervention precipitates a terrible retribution by the Nazis whose young, smooth-talking commandant exacts bloody revenge on a rounded-up group of innocent Communist sympathisers, ruthlessly carried out by his grinning goon second-in-command.

Completely unnerved by these events, Wil is pulled this way and that with his obligations to his own family, his introduction to the Belgian Resistance group, his growing relationship with the initially distrusting sister of Lode and finally the expectation that he will subjugate himself to the Nazis and lead them to the truth about what really happened to their missing officer and by extension go on to hunt down and exterminate the local Resistance.

Be warned, this isn't a film for the faint-hearted containing as it does several scenes of look-away brutality, murder and torture. It all ends with Wil having to make his own mind up as to whether he puts his instinct for self-preservation over his inherent humanity and compassion for others. His dilemma is reminiscent, if in a more extreme way, of Winston Smith's in Orwell's "1984" and you probably know how that ends...

This is a dark and bleak feature which holds up a "what would you do?" mirror in front of the viewer and this, even more than some of the graphically harrowing scenes depicted, makes it an uneasy watch.

The ensemble acting is excellent. Lead Stef Aerts in the title role is presented to us initially as a naive, idealistic youth caught in the headlights by events, with his cherubic looks and almost angelic golden curls he resembles a young Art Garfunkel, but as events overtake him, we see him cauterized into the barbaric automaton he becomes at the end. Annelore Crollet as his girlfriend acts as the moral conscience of the film, taking over that role from her brother and it's she who delivers the final verdict on his actions at the movie's shocking climax.

Filmed in hyper-realistic style by Tim Mielants, while I considered there to be one or two implausible plot-jumps and might have welcomed at least some beacons of hope in the narrative, this was nevertheless a compelling study of the opposing psychologies of the oppressors and the oppressed in wartime.

I went to see this movie because I absolutely loved Mielants' first film, De Patrick. I knew nothing about Wil, and didn't read the book, but went solely because it was another film by Mielants. And it did not disappoint.

The story is a bit thin (you can kind of guess where the movie's going), but the cinematography is beautiful, and the acting is very solid. I was not bored throughout the movie, and was also moved emotionally, especially near the end. While it's an entirely different type of movie from De Patrick, you recognise Mielants' signature style in it. Visually it's a also very impressive movie.

The choice to crop the screen so that it feels more like a movie of old; and the way the movie is shot very up close and personal in all actors' faces, really contributes to the suspension and feeling of unease. The score and music of the movie was also amazing.

I think this is a very strong movie made by one of Belgium's most talented directors.

Where to start ...

Wil is a serious film, and it leaves an impact on you. Based on the novel 'Wil' by Flemish author Jeroen Olyslaegers, it shows the grim sides of working as an auxiliary police officer during occupied Antwerp in 1942. Moral choices and consequences are displayed incredibly well in the film, and make you think about what's worth for survival and what not. Who to betray and who not. Who you would risk your life for, and who not.

It leaves a great impression on me, going from extremely violent images, to sensual, to the type of moral choices that are presented that no one is really capable of making.

A very powerful film, I would absolutely recommend it. The trailer doesn't do the film justice at all!

This movie while surely based off of a fictional story, does however give you insight into the mentality and moral conflictions all of these young and old men of the police had to face during nazi occupation. The reviewers criticizing the movie about the cruelty having to be seen or captured is one of if not the most idiotic thing to mention. The movie is based off of the holocaust. Is it supposed to show you confetti when somebody is shot in the face? Was the director to replace the gestapo with clowns with big funny noses? The movie is intentionally set in the grim past of reality, the movie is the perspective of Wilfried, a recounting of witnessing cruelty beyond words could describe. And the criticizing of the movie being slow or boring, not every movie about world war two has to be filled with tanks, planes, and machine guns. You don't need needless action to portray a message encapsulated in this very movie. As far as others calling this a nazi sympathizer film, did you even watch the movie? The character is objectively and morally against the Nazi collaborators and actions of the gestapo when he was faced with it. The long stares are purposeful and meaningful, the gut wrenching imagery Wilfried sees would haunt any man woman or child witnessing it first hand in a world where you've never seen a man being tortured with boiling and ice water, a world where you've never seen men and women turn on their countrymen and women over propaganda aimed to dehumanize the jewish people. This movie has the character reeling from each new day that comes, because each day seemingly gets harder and harder to cope with. 9/10 I'd have given it a 10 had it been longer.