MovieChat Forums > De tweeling (2002) Discussion > The American Soldier

The American Soldier

posted 17 years ago by diehappy
7 replies | jump to latest

be careful - maybe I'm gonna SPOIL something with this question.

please excuse my bad english at first.
near the end after Anna learns of her husband's death there is a scene where she's standing on a bridge and throughs a basket with his clothes into the river. an american solider appears next to her and says "hi" - after that there is a rough cut with anna visiting lotte in the netherlands.
i feel very stupid to ask this but since I have seen this film last night and was very tired while watching the last half I might have missed something - was there a significant message in this few seconds besides "the war is lost"? do you think anna was raped by the soldier? and if yes, was their a relevance in her comment why she wasn't able to get children (she said it was because of what her uncle has done to her but maybe she was afraid of telling lotte that is was an american GI?).

if someone has read the book maybe you can answer this question.

thanks in advance.

[–] dirk-schricker-2 17 years ago

I also watched this movie on German TV last night. Well I was tired, too, but I am pretty sure there wasn't a scene between the appearance of the GI and Anna travelling to Holland. Maybe somebody who read the book is able to give an answer.

[–] paaskynen 17 years ago

Anna throws her suitcase of baby clothes in the river. It symbolizes the destruction of her dream of a happy family.

After the war most Germans were desperately poor and if I remember well, Anna lived for a while with a G.I. as a way to survive the aftermath of the war. That is how come, when in Holland and Lotte has said she will not hear another word of German, she tries to speak some English.

[–] rutica 13 years ago

no one was raped. i watched the movie tonight and re-watched this scene just now. i saw no scene like you said ("an american solider appears next to her and says "hi" - after that there is a rough cut with anna visiting lotte in the netherlands").

Anna throws the suitcase in the water in anger. the clothes float away. the next scene shows a Dutch flag being raised and David's brother looking for Lotte and telling her she will miss watching the Canadians in the parade. Lotte is drawing a ring on her finger in black ink.

maybe you feel asleep during part of the movie and dreamed of the american soldier. :-)

[–] ElenaP-3 12 years ago

Granted, I didn't see the entire film yesterday on television, but when they rolled the credits at the end, there WAS an 'American Soldier' part and actor listed. Either I missed that part of the film, or it ended up on the cutting-room floor, but the initial poster was right: there was a character like that in the film.

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] BulmaPunkRocker 10 years ago

There was indeed a northamerican soldier, no doubt about it. He's even on the credits. He says something like " Hi babe, are you ok?", after Anna throws the suitcase with baby clothes to the river. Then we got the rough cut to the Netherlands flag. I wish I could get the book here in my country, at the end of the world.

[–] lulupalooza 10 years ago

He's not in the version that I just watched; supposedly an American soldier asks if Anna's okay after she throws the baby clothes into the river. So no rape - that's quite the stretch. It meant nothing, other than the war is over and somebody publicly noticed her emotional outburst at the river. Perhaps the director deleted this because it created confusion. as it would nearly imply that a new male character was being introduced and then we never see him again. Scenes like that are totally useless and get deleted by any decent director.

Also, in the book, she was never raped by an American (or any) soldier. Her inability to have a baby was caused by scarring due to the horrific physical abuse inflicted upon her by her uncle.

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