AllMovie

Popular Dutch director Fons Rademakers tries his hand at symbolic drama in this interesting story about thirteen-year-old Thomas and the anger he feels against his mother's first romantic liaison after the death of his father. Complicating matters is that this new man in her life is Thomas' own tutor and a former friend of his father's. The young teen also acquires his first girlfriend at this time but he cannot handle his mixed feelings of jealousy, hatred, and love. His downfall is tightly connected to the fascination he has for an oriental knife he has stolen, a "secret" weapon that can prove dangerous in his current misguided state of mind.