Soldier of Orange (1917 - 2007)

Whenever I am asked about Dutch movies I say without hesitation that the best one ever made was Soldier of Orange (1977). It was at the time the most expensive movie production ever made in Holland and it launched the international careers of both Rutger Hauer and Paul Verhoeven. With this movie Verhoeven - who went on to achieve Hollywood fame with 'Basic Instinct' - brought his unique brand of realism to a larger and international audience. It meant that 'Soldier' was enriched with quite a bit of sex and a few torture scenes that stand the test of time and are as haunting today as they were thirty years ago. But above all it was the script that was able to condense the experiences of the Dutch under Nazi rule into a compelling film built around a hero who waged his own struggle against the brutal German oppressor.

The movie was based on the book written by the man who came to be known as the 'Soldier of Orange', Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema who died in his home on Hawaii earlier this week at the age of 90. The story follows the adventures of a group of rather privileged Dutch college students whose careless life at Leiden University is disrupted by the Nazi invasion of May 1940. The group falls apart during the war, a few side with the enemy, one Jewish member perishes, and some end up in the resistance, notably Hazelhoff Roelfzema. The movie follows his daring crossing of enemy lines across the North Sea to reach the British shores and a subsequent return with Royal Navy assistance to the occupied beaches of the Dutch mainland. In actual life the Dutch hero made about fourteen such crossings which sought to maintain vital links with Dutch resistance forces in the occupied country. After this he entered the RAF as a pilot carrying out some seventy bombing missions over Germany. Towards the end of the war he became the adjudant to Queen Wilhelmina, a role which earned him his nickname as 'Orange' is not only the Dutch national color, it is the royal family's surname.

Yet, his life after the war proved to be equally interesting. Of course his efforts and hero status had rendered him totally unfit to return to regular Dutch life and a short spell as a diplomat ended rather abruptly after having spoken his mind about the future of the Dutch East Indies. His passion for this part of the world led him to carry out a few missions on behalf of the Republic of the Moluccas, a rather large part of eastern Indonesia that was counting on independence following the Dutch departure in 1949. That quest was stifled by the international community - notably the US - who had a vested interest in the post-war world to keep Indonesia a unified entity and a bulwark against communism. Of course, his mission failed and Hazelhoff Roelfzema started a new life as an immigrant in the US, holding a variety of jobs, working among other things for NBC and Radio Free Europe.

In his biography Hazelhoff Roelfzema makes it clear that he essentially was an adventurer and loved nothing more than writing. It was his second wife who encouraged him to put his Soldier of Orange memories to paper and it became a major bestseller in 1971. It gave Hazelhoff instant celebrity in The Netherlands and as a 'war hero' the small nation got something its own narrative of the Second World War deeply lacked. Hazelhoff himself - by that time retired on Hawaii - never considered himself as such and made it clear that many others had done the same: that what was required under extremely difficult circumstances. He had just been lucky enough to stumble into the limelight.

Despite his American passport and passion for the Big Island, he always remained a Dutchman at heart, visiting his homeland regularly, while at the same time realizing that he could not ever live there again. His life is a remarkable one and the movie remains an absolute must see.