Crusade in Jeans (film)

Crusade in Jeans
Film poster
Directed by	Ben Sombogaart
Written by	Chris Craps Jean-Claude Van Rijckeghem Thea Beckman (novel)
Release dates	November 16, 2006
Country	Netherlands/Belgium/Germany
Language	English

Crusade in Jeans (Dutch: Kruistocht in spijkerbroek) is a 2006 Dutch film, an adaptation of the book Crusade in Jeans by Thea Beckman. The film was directed by Ben Sombogaart.

Plot summary

Dolf, a 15-year-old boy living in Rotterdam, plays a football match in the stadium of Speyer, Germany. Due to Dolf's fault his team loses.

Dolf's mother works in a research center where a time machine has been developed. It allows an object, animal or person to be moved to a specified time in the past and a specified location. It is also possible to move to the present, and to the research center, whatever is on a specified time in the past in a specified exact location of ca. one square meter. Thus a person moving to the past can only return to the present by being at the right time on exactly the right location. The machine is being tested on animals. A special medicine is needed daily to stay alive in the past.

Dolf decides to go back in time one day, and go to Germany, to replay the match. Since he regularly visits his mother at the lab and assists with the work, guards know him, the iris scan authorization check lets him pass, and he knows his mother's password of the computer system. This enables him to use the time machine unauthorizedly. However, this activation of the system alarms guards. Dolf manages to apply the system just in time before the guards can stop him, but in the hurry he accidentally enters the password in the field for the destination date, and consequently travels to the year 1212. His destination location is as planned: the location of the present-day stadium, not far from the in 1212 already existing city of Speyer.

Soon after arriving in 1212 he is attacked. The girl Jenne saves his life.

He joins the Children's Crusade, a journey on foot, motivated by the Christian faith, of 8,000 children from Germany to Jerusalem to non-violently conquer the city from the Muslim Ayyubid dynasty, with God's help. The leaders are the teenage boy Nicolas and father Anselmus. They first go across the Alps to Genoa, where Nicolas expects the sea to part, so that they can walk through the sea to Palestine. However, Anselmus has the secret plan to sell the children as slaves. We see him releasing pigeons to send a message to the traders, and we see him secretly meeting representatives of them.

Each time they pass a city they urge the local authorities to assist them with food and supplies, emphasizing that it would be against God's will to refuse. At Speyer assistance is refused, after which the church of the city is destroyed by fire, caused by a lightning strike. This is interpreted as God's revenge; the responsible person who refused to assist the children is hanged, and the children are now welcome.

Dolf applies his modern-day knowledge to save the lives of many children. He even saves the life of one of the leaders, prince Carolus, who almost drowns, by bringing him on shore and applying cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Dolf also helps to stop an infectious disease from spreading. He also carries modern equipment, such as his watch, his iPod, and his mobile phone (albeit without signal), and also his clothes and his Mars Bar are special for the people living in 1212. All this helps him gain respect.

At Rottweil the crusaders get flour to bake as much bread as they can in one night. Dolf pays the baker with his iPod for use of his bakery, and together the children bake enough bread for everyone.

Dolf has doubts about the people's Christian beliefs, e.g. that the sea will part. However, the people are very aggressive against people with different beliefs; Dolf is almost executed for blasphemy.

Dolf has some of the medicine with him that one needs when sent to another time, but runs out of it. Dolf's mother succeeds in sending him a new supply and a message about the time and place where he has to be to be brought back to 2006. She knows about his whereabouts from an old book describing this stranger that appeared in 1212. The book was written and illustrated by Thaddeus, a learned monk with whom Dolf gets befriended. Dolf successfully returns to 2006.

However, Dolf has fallen in love with Jenne and they had the intention to go together, but in the consternation Jenne failed to join Dolf. Therefore Dolf wants to go to 1212 again; his mother understands, and gives him a new supply of the medicine. After Dolf leaves 2006 for the second time, the film ends.

Cast

• Joe Flynn as Dolf Vega
• Stephanie Leonidas as Jenne
• Emily Watson as Mary Vega, Dolf's mother
• Michael Culkin as Father Anselmus
• Benno Fürmann as Thaddeus
• Jake Kedge as Carolus
• Robert Timmins as Nicholas
• Ryan Winsley as Vick
• Josse De Pauw as the Axe-Man
• Jan Decleir as the Count of Rottweil

Alterations from the book

• In the book Dolf deliberately goes to the Middle Ages, and is authorized by the researcher to do so.
• In the book Dolf's best friends in 1212 are Leonardo and Mariecke; in the film they are replaced by Jenne.
• In the book Carolus dies of appendicitis. In the movie he doesn't die.
• In the book the journey continues after Genoa; the film ends there.
• The book ends with Dolf returning to his own time. In the movie he gets back to his own time but then returns another time to 1212 to be with Jenne. The final scenes of the film show Dolf replaying the final moments of the soccer game that opens the film, with a clearly "modern" Jenne cheering him on in the stands.

Filming locations

Filming locations included the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Croatia and Spain.

Awards

• Golden Film for 100,000 visitors in the Netherlands (2006)
• Platinum Film for 400,000 visitors in the Netherlands (2007)
• Golden Calf for Best Feature Film (2007) to Kees Kasander
• Golden Calf for Best Editing (2007) to Herman P. Koerts

External links

• Kruistocht in Spijkerbroek Template:Nl icon
• Kruistocht in spijkerbroek at IMDb