A question of guilt in 'The Assault'

By Tam Notosusanto

JAKARTA (JP): You can leave the past behind, but you may never escape it.

That's a reality that Anton Steenwijk knows very well, and this man's journey in recuperating from a scarred childhood is poignantly portrayed in the Oscar-winning Dutch film The Assault (De Aanslag).

It's a journey that begins in a town called Haarlem in January 1945, a time when part of the Netherlands has not yet been released from the Nazi occupation. As the film's narrator describes the situation: "Most of Europe is already liberated and is celebrating, eating, drinking, making love. But in Haarlem it is still wartime and winter, The Hunger Winter."

Twelve-year-old Anton lives with his parents and older brother Peter. The school is closed, so he spends most of his time around the house: slogging through snow to get into the food line, helping his father burn books for heating, playing an intimate board game with his family during the stillness of the curfew hours. It's a somber life, but full of contentment for wide-eyed Anton.

It all comes to an abrupt end one night when a local Nazi collaborator is found murdered in front of their house. In a terrifying blitzkrieg moment, Anton's blissful life is shattered as angry Nazi soldiers storm their residence. He is taken away and separated from his family, and can only watch helplessly as the family home is set on fire.

After a period of confusion, Anton is eventually transported to Amsterdam, where he subsequently lives and grows up in the care of his uncle. He later learns that his whole family was executed by the Nazis. As he becomes an adult, however, Anton chooses to stay away from his painful past, avoiding any opportunity of learning about what really happened, never indulging his curiosity. But he discovers that the past will never let go of him, until he can find the answers to the mystifying aspects surrounding that night's occurrence.

The Assault is a motion picture that combines great drama with an effective detective story. Based on the novel by one of The Netherlands' most prominent writers, Harry Mulisch, Gerard Soeteman's faithful adaptation divides Anton's search for the truth into several segments set in different years. Each segment marks Anton's chance meeting with a key figure in that 1945 incident, who adds another piece to the jigsaw puzzle.

The film works in the mode of Citizen Kane, in which a mystery gradually unravels through a series of interviews and testimonies. But along the way, Kane also presents us with a theme of humanity and of human nature. So does The Assault, which injects the question "who is to blame?", as Anton seeks the true nature of his family's annihilation.

The film is also reminiscent of Eleni, an autobiography of journalist Nick Gage, and put to film by Peter Yates. The story tells of the author's search for answers surrounding the brutal execution of his mother by Nazis in his homeland Greece. But unlike Eleni, the central character of The Assault is not driven by the slightest hint of revenge or hatred.

"It happened and that's that. There's nothing I can do about it, no matter what I find out," Anton says. "What's the point of clearing it up?" But the more reluctant Anton is to discover the whole truth, the more he is drawn into the unintentional investigation and confronted by ghosts from his past.

In the three decades following the incident, Anton accidentally meets several people in succession: the grownup son of the Nazi collaborator killed in front of his childhood home, the former Resistance fighter who shot dead the Nazi sympathizer, and finally a neighbor who purposefully moves the body from her backyard to the front of Anton's home, transferring the blame -- and the calamity -- to Anton's family.

These are the very people whom Anton could easily dispense the guilt for his family's death on. But as it turns out, the case is not so simple. These encounters merely answer questions that have been boggling his mind: why should the killing have occurred and why would the friendly girl next door -- whom he had a boyhood crush on -- suddenly placed his family in jeopardy? Anton's truth-seeking odyssey never reveals who is clearly guilty, and this film beautifully conveys how life is not black and white.

Director Fons Rademakers shows remarkable dexterity in intermingling the past and the present to tell this brilliant and thought-provoking film, a skill already apparent in his previous masterpiece, Max Havelaar.

Even in the darkest places, Rademakers' directing shines. Supported by Theo Van De Sande's remarkable cinematography, Rademakers conjures up even the most technically-difficult scenes, such as the one in the dark cell occupied by Anton and a female Resistance fighter.

We barely see anything here, yet this is the scene where most of the film's touching and memorable moments lie. The film is truly an example of superb craftsmanship and deservedly won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of 1986.

Sadly, the role of Anton is not delivered very well by Derek De Lint, who mistakes the stoic and emotionally restrained character as a frowning, soulless zombie who will suddenly break down unconvincingly.

We know De Lint as the priest in the controversial erotic Stealing Heaven (1987) and the star of the schlock horror TV series Poltergeist: The Legacy. Fortunately, his under-performance here doesn't really hurt this all too powerful film, which boasts more solid acting from the likes of John Kraaykamp (as Gijs, the elderly war veteran) and Marc Van Uchelen (as the more soulful younger Anton).

Thanks to The Netherlands' Cultural Center, we will finally be able to watch this outstanding movie, even though it will have been 14 years after its original release. The Assault will be screened twice at Erasmus Huis on Sunday, June 27, at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.