The title of the Belgian World War II drama. Willpower (now on Netflix) has a double meaning: it’s about a man named Wil who struggles, mightily, I might add, to determine whether he possesses the will to resist Nazi cruelty. This is a fascinating period piece and character drama highlighted by sudden bursts of disturbing violence, which our titular protagonist occasionally participates in while in the middle of an impossible situation. The film’s subject matter and occasional graphic images make it difficult to watch, but is it worth cutting out the intense drama? Let’s find out.
WILLPOWER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: Wilfried Wils (Stef Aerts) and his friend Lode Metdepenningen (Matteo Simoni) are rookies in the Antwerp police. It’s your first day at work. Their uniforms are spotless and clean, unsullied by unsightly wear. They listen to the orders of their commanding officer: their job is to be mediators between their fellow Belgians and the German occupiers. The essence of this is, stay there and watch. Be passive. Do what they tell you. And that’s a problem if your moral compass is direct and true: the occupying Germans are psychotic racist Nazis, and I know it’s a redundant phrase, but I need to be clear and direct, because from where Wil stand, the gray areas are wide, deep and expansive. It’s 1942.
Wil and Lode’s first task is to escort a Feldgendarmerie (the Nazi military police) to a house where the Jewish occupants “have refused to work.” The Feldgendarm will arrest the Litzke family, a mother and father and a little girl, and take them, well, no one says where, but we can be sure that it will be, well, fateful. And Wil and Lode know it. They stand still, uncomfortable, while the Feldgendarm takes pills and rages at the Litzkes, threatening and mistreating them. Of course, they’re unarmed, and of course, the Feldengarm compares them to “rats,” and in a sudden fit of violent rage, Wil pushes the Feldgendarm and slams his face into a beam and he’s dead. He and Lode lift a manhole cover and drop the body, and Wil is now deep, deep in the gray expanse.
This is not the first time we will see Wil seemingly possessed by violence. It’s not like him: he’s young, slim built, and longs to be an artist. But the world around him is changing and he must change with it, no matter how difficult the transition may be. He finds himself in a nowhere zone: his police superiors are pressured by the arrogant Nazi commander Gregor (Dimitrij Schaad), who wants to know what happened to the now missing Feldgendarm. Lode joins a secret Belgian resistance group led by the Professor (Jan Decleir), and whose ranks include Lode’s sister, Yvette (Annelore Crollet), who shows a romantic interest in Wil. At the other extreme is Felix Verschaffel (Dirk Roofthooft), a Nazi ally to whom Wil’s family is indebted; Felix loves to paint and sees Wil as a kindred spirit and an easy recruit for bloody raids on Jewish neighborhoods. The investigation into the Feldgendarm continues; Wil is torn between the ideas of doing what is right and what is easy; His relationship with Yvette complicates his internal conflict. Meanwhile, he is caught in a powerful internal tug-of-war: Who is he? A passive observer or an aggressive man of action?
What movies will it remind you of?: Some sequences of subterfuge in the presence of highly hittable Nazi faces recall Inglorious Bastardsalthough Willpower It’s a completely conventional movie with a poker face. Otherwise, it has a similar aesthetic to other 20th century war films produced by Netflix, e.g. Narvik and All calm on the western front.
Performance worth seeing: Crollet is a magnetic presence here. She presents Yvette as a morally righteous individual whose latent sexuality lights a flame in Wil, although he is unsure where and when he should let that flame burn.
Memorable dialogue: Wil comes to a harshly pragmatic conclusion about the times he lives in: “It’s about survival. Consciousness is a luxury.”
Sex and skin: Just some out of frame action, no nudity.
Our opinion: WillpowerThe first 10 minutes are gripping and intense, setting a suspenseful tone for the rest of the film: Will Gregor and his quick-witted goons discover Wil’s role in the missing Feldgendarm case? Will Yvette inspire Wil to rise up and fight the Nazis? Will social and peer pressure influence Wil to go with the fascist trend? Wil frustrates Yvette (and, by extension, us) by vacillating back and forth, torn between self-preservation and altruism, between risk and his innate aversion to it. Sitting still and being Switzerland in this situation is not an option when you’re caught between outside influences and the nagging conscience inside your head. The question, again, is whether he has the will to overcome his weaknesses.
The conclusion reached by director and writer Tim Mielants, co-written with Carl Joos, adapting a novel by Jeroen Olyslaegers, is not definitive, and we should not expect it to be. WillpowerThe country’s main conflicts are far from simple; It’s a shame that the Nazis aren’t always derailed by their own overconfidence and that the protagonists aren’t always doing the right and true thing. That’s fantasy stuff, and Mielants’ goal is to create a realistic and plausible rock-and-hard-place enigma, and show us what happens when his characters veer between ethical poles. It’s disheartening to watch Wil, who is for the most part a decent human being, enjoy a night dancing with Yvette, only to see it ruined when the cunning and suspicious Gregor shows up at the club to torment them. . Great joy and great pain collide together like ships too close in harbor, and Wil is the seal between them, trying not to be crushed.
Mielants skillfully cultivates simmering tension, and Robrecht Heyvaert’s cinematography is engaging and memorable. Most of the film’s effectiveness lies in the performances, and our lack of patience with Aerts’s somewhat bland depiction of a meek man’s internal struggle is ultimately fueled by Crollet’s work; wil She really comes to life when she’s on screen and you’ll wish the script spent more time developing her character. Sometimes it seems as if the central idea hangs like a long shadow over the characters (the best ones are about two and a half dimensions), but at least that idea is taut and compelling enough to hold our attention. . Let’s just be thankful this is more ambitious than another Nazi-ass-kicking action movie.
Our call: All the great, long stories of World War II seem to have been told over and over again; wil It wisely tells an absorbing, small-scale story that clearly depicts the overall conflict. TRANSMIT IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic living in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
