{"id":6200,"date":"2009-11-10T00:48:23","date_gmt":"2009-11-10T08:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=6200"},"modified":"2009-11-10T21:06:34","modified_gmt":"2009-11-11T05:06:34","slug":"the-silent-army-jean-van-de-velde-2008-netherlands-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=6200","title":{"rendered":"The Silent Army (Jean van de Velde, 2008): Netherlands"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Zi Huang<\/a>. Viewed at the Grauman\u2019s Chinese Theatre at the AFI Film Festival, Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0The Silent Army<\/a><\/em> is a recutting international version of the 2008 Dutch movie Wit Licht<\/a><\/em> directed by Jean van de Velde and based on a true story happened in Africa. It\u2019s about how the kidnapped childlike children are trained to be soldiers who have no mercy to kill the innocent people. It\u2019s a very special and shocked subject matter. Although I had knew this subject by watching preview of this film or a film similar long time ago, I was still curious about The Silent Army and have a high expectation to it. But perhaps it\u2019s because the expectation was too high, the film was not too good as I imagined.<\/p>\n

The story centers about an African boy named Abu who is the best friend of a white boy comes from Netherlands. The white boy\u2019s father Eduard Zuiderwijk (Marco Borsato) is a cook and has his own restaurant in an unstable area of Africa. Abu\u2019s mother is an employee in Eduard\u2019s restaurant and also a friend of Eduard and his wife. Abu is an outgoing kid who lives in a tranquil small village and loves his family and friends so much, and especially his father is the most important people for him. However, Abu\u2019s life has been changed since the armed rebels come to rob and kill in his village. Everything is changed. The village is destroyed, and Abu is forced to kill his father by himself to survive. He is kidnapped as a prisoner with other innocent kids by the rebels. The head of the rebels tries to train these children to be soldiers so that buildup a strong army. To save Abu, Eduard and his son Thomas set out a dangerous journey to find him out.<\/p>\n

When I watched the film, I was shocked strongly by what the rebels did to the kids. It\u2019s so cruel that they got some many kills from the innocent people, but it\u2019s crueler that they forced the kids kill their parents and other fellow kids to survive. That\u2019s how the rebels make the kids betray their soul and can never go back the normal life. It just makes the child soldiers feel extremely painful in mental whenever they look back what have done are sins. Therefore, keep killing can be the only way to make the kids num and forget the pain. The church killing scene in the film present the kids have become the devils and the ruthless killers completely in front of the God. It\u2019s hard to believe that is a reality in Africa, but that is the truth.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t agree the film is a fantastic great work due to its extreme heroism. I personally think the white father Eduard is too brave and undaunted to save Abu on his own. That makes the film a bit unreal and looks like Hollywood style although it may be a part of the real story. Anyway, the film is good enough to watch, and makes more people think and concern about the subject matter of child soldiers and African people\u2019s life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Zi Huang. Viewed at the Grauman\u2019s Chinese Theatre at the AFI Film Festival, Hollywood. \u00a0The Silent Army is a recutting international version of the 2008 Dutch movie Wit Licht directed by Jean van de Velde and based on a true story happened in Africa. It\u2019s about how the kidnapped childlike children are trained […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":668,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afi-filmfest-2009","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}