In Do Not Hesitate, selected as the Dutch submission for the Academy’s best international feature film category, a peacekeeping mission in an unnamed Middle Eastern country goes awry when three young Dutch soldiers are stranded in a valley when their vehicle breaks down and their commander sets out for help.
The film’s director, Shariff Korver, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter film critic Leslie Felperin for THR Presents, powered by Vision Media, about his motivation for making the film, and the arduous, no-holds-barred prep he and his crew underwent to assure a high degree of verisimilitude in telling their story.
The idea for the film, says Korver, had been gestating for 11 years, dating back to when he was a student at the Dutch Film Academy and he read about young Dutch soldiers sent to Greece for a debrief after five months in Afghanistan, with the idea that that they would undergo therapy by day and blow off steam by night.
Related Stories
“They expressed their feelings through fighting and drinking,” says Korver, which caused him to wonder what happened during their deployment.
Korver was nothing if not thorough in his mission. “We spent a year doing research, interviewing many, many veterans, watching all the documentaries we could see, talking to experts to map the whole thing out [and discover] what is actually happening during a mission of deployment. How is it to send young people going abroad?”
For the director, the right casting was crucial. “I wanted the audience to believe they were watching real soldiers and not actors playing soldiers,” he says. “But the script was too challenging for non-actors to play, so I needed really good actors because there’s a lot going on, and a lot of nuance, and they have an arc to play. It wasn’t enough to be the type.
“So I found these three young, very talented actors [Spencer Bogaert, Joes Brauers and Tobias Kersloot], and basically I asked them to become soldiers. I gave them half a year to gain the body but also the training. So we hired a veteran to do military training. I asked them to live together in an apartment. And we tried to re-create the whole thing. They learned how to shoot, how to move, how to talk — the whole thing. And basically I told them, ‘when you walk on set, I need you to be that soldier.’”
In the film, the tension is ratcheted up when one of the soldiers accidentally kills a goat, the sole possession of a local boy named Khali (Omar Alwan), the other key piece in the casting puzzle.
“Omar was the most challenging role I’ve ever had to cast in my life,” says Korver. “We tried to find the boy everywhere, all around the world, and we ended up finding him in Holland. What are the odds? He’s from Syria and he’s a refugee. And he came in and blew us away with his audition.”
At the end of the day, the film raises questions about young men sent off to zones of conflict that they’re insufficiently prepared to deal with, or even understand, and when the best intentions end up having the opposite effect.
“We wanted to say something about the encounter between Western soldiers and the reason that they are there,” explains Korver. “And the reason is to help the local people. But if you move funny, they are going to point a gun at you and tell you to lie on the ground. And what if you’re done with that? What if you are tired of following orders and at some point you’re not afraid anymore?”
This edition of THR Presents is sponsored by Lemming Film.
