The Forgotten Battle

De slag om de Schelde (2020) is a Dutch movie co-written and directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. It was shown in the U. S. with the title "The Forgotten Battle." The actual title translates as "The Battle of the Scheldt." We in the U. S. may never have heard of it. That's because Canadian troops bore the brunt of the battle against the Germans. I'm sure it's not a forgotten battle in Canada or Holland. Gijs Blom portrays Marinus van Staveren, a Dutch citizen who is fighting on the side of the Germans. He hates Jews--and probably Communists--so he volunteered to fight in the German army. When the movie opens, he's fighting on the Russian front, but he gets transferred to Holland. Jamie Flatters plays William Sinclair. He's a British glider pilot, but his glider is shot down and he lands in Holland. Susan Radder plays Teuntje Visser, a Dutch woman who works in the mayor's office. Jan Bijvoet portrays her father--Doctor Visser--who treats Germans and Dutch equally well. The complexity of the movie is the interaction among these people, as the Canadian forces try to overcome the German forces in the area called The Scheldt. (I checked, and it really was important for the allies to possess the region, and equally important for the Germans to prevent this.) Of course, in a war movie, there's going to be blood and carnage. However, what keeps this film from being just another WWII movie is the complicated plot, that goes in directions you may not expect. De slag om de Schelde has a pretty weak IMDb rating of 7.1. I thought it was better than that, and rated it 8.

From minute 1 till minute 124 this movie keeps you focussed. You can feel the battle, the pain and the suffer. Absolutely not over romanced. The effects were spectacular. One minor thing to mention. People from Vlisdingen, Walcheren don't speak the dialect from Zeeuws Vlaanderen like was spoken.