Flanders, 1939: eleven-year-old Louis Seynaeve is lost in schoolboy mischief and fantasy at his Catholic boarding school near Kortrijk—until the German occupation arrives. As his nationalist family drifts toward collaboration, Louis watches, baffled and alert, caught between his father's printing press and his own stubborn, anarchic instincts. Often likened to The Tin Drum for its biting, darkly comic edge.
Under occupation, siding with the occupier need not look like a dramatic betrayal. Inside a closed, self-righteous community it can feel as natural as breathing, a chance to restore the region's 'natural condition'. Families slide into it through pride, boredom, ambition and a taste for 'discipline and order'.
A child raised under one total belief system becomes easy prey for the next. The same community passes from religious indoctrination to Nazi propaganda to postwar American swagger. Growing up means learning to distrust each in turn.
Unresolved inner conflicts, such as a son's fixation on his mother, can mirror a society's pull toward totalitarian fear of 'the Other'. The war outside is matched by a 'slimy, inner civil war' in one person's mind.
The damage of war and domination shows most truly in small private details rather than on the battlefield. Strained family ties, a boy's fixation on his father's hidden sweets and his unsettling early encounters reveal the isolation and insecurity that faraway horrors leave behind.
Coming of age amid collaboration and war brings understanding only by stripping away faith in family, church and nation. The boy ends up trusting nothing except his own creative impulse, a loner with a newborn conscience.