It’s 1942, Nazi-occupied Antwerp. The beginning narration belongs to the title character, Willfried Wils (Stef Aerts), an 18-year-old on his first day as a police officer. But the voice must be the older Will, looking back at that moment, ruminating on the after-the-fact judgment of people … people who weren’t there.
“When you’re in the middle of it,” he says, “when you don’t know what tomorrow will bring, and nobody does, not you, not I, then you don’t know shit.”
Will and his best friend Lode Metdepenningen (Matteo Simoni), having completed two-and-a-half weeks of training, are gathered in a room full of fellow recruits to receive guidance from their commanding officer: Their duty, he tells them, is only to mediate between the Belgian citizens and the Germans. The veteran then orders the door closed, and he shares the real advice: just stand and watch.
Which proves impossible. On their first patrol together on a rainy night, Will and Lode encounter a German officer, who orders them to assist in arresting a Jewish family. When the officer starts to beat the mother and child, their attempt to stop the beating ends in the German’s death.
And what else do you need to know? From there, a cascade of unpredictable events weave an ever-tightening web of danger and urgency around Will. The young man, who wanted simply to be an artist, tries to do the right thing, but every new task, every new day, forces him to make fateful and irreversible decisions.
See It
Wil (also sometimes rendered as Will) is the kind of movie you must watch. Be forewarned. In its authenticity, you’ll see gut-wrenching scenes of cruelty and torture, but now and then you have to witness the depths to which humans can sink. Why this film? Because unlike Hollywood actioners, the brutality is authentic; it’s not there to titillate but to show you with honest integrity what people who were entirely blameless were forced to endure or to witness.
What to make of Stef Aerts’ performance as Will? While watching, I found myself wanting more … deeper expressions of fear, more urgency in his voice. But in retrospect, I think the wide-eyed stares, the nearly mute responses at times, are sound choices. This movie might easily have been ruined by overacting. At the moments when you want to yell at Will for not speaking up, these are the moments when you must ask yourself what you would have done or said in such situations yourself. As teenage Will is made to watch beatings, to witness the brutal torture of his captain, endure the screams of his friends, he is simply overcome with shock and mind-numbing horror. It is the action itself that must affect you, not Will’s reaction to it.
On the reverse side, does Dimitrij Schaad overplay his role as SS officer Gregor Schnabel? Maybe just a bit, maybe not. He’s absolutely terrifying as the man in charge of rooting out the resistance and rounding up Jews. He is alternately beguiling and persuasive when trying to lure Will into collaborating with him, and maniacal as he revels in torture and manipulation. A chilling performance.
Annelore Crollet as Yvette seems to strike the right balance. She’s passionate in her hatred of the Nazis, ferocious in protecting her brother Lobe. Her initial distrust of Will transforms believably into affection as they hatch their plans together and are driven further and further into danger. She tears your heart in her final scene as she realizes how little her bravery and effort has accomplished.
Will invites you – no, it challenges you – to consider what you might have done had you been a teenage police officer in 1942 Antwerp. Would you have embraced the police commander’s advice: just stand and watch? Or would you like to believe you’d have done something, no matter how little, to make a difference? Be thoughtful, be honest. Wil is a movie that calls bullshit on pretensions and hypocrisy.