A film about young people whose lives are unceremoniously invaded by world history

A film about young people whose lives are unceremoniously invaded by world history. Paul Verhoeven's "Soldier of Orange" (also known in Russian as "The Queen's Soldier"), 1977, is a classic of war cinema. Its heroes are four friends, all students at Leiden University. The Second World War comes to Holland. Young, handsome and distinctive, the lads face trials of honour, courage and friendship. How to survive? How not to break? Some of yesterday's comrades march in the ranks of the SS, while others go underground and serve the queen in exile. They fight shoulder to shoulder, and sometimes face to face. This is war, and persecution, torture and baseness are to be expected, but so are glimmers of hope, faith in victory and the power of love.
The film is based on an autobiographical memoir, and what happens on screen can be believed; to our own perception it is a rather unfamiliar view of the events of the war. But it is also a very delicate and perceptive account of the fate of a young generation that has entered into conflict with the legacy of a grown-up and cruel world. Essential viewing

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free. So, here is the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

A film about young people whose lives are unceremoniously invaded by world history

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s