Netherlands

  • Mijke de Jong – Joy (2010)

    2001-2010DramaMijke de JongNetherlands

    An uninflected, docu-like study of an 18-year-old Dutch woman searching for her birth mother. (Variety)Read More »

  • Fons Rademakers – Als twee druppels water AKA The Spitting Image (1963)

    Fons Rademakers1961-1970DramaMysteryNetherlandsQueer Cinema(s)

    Quote:
    Transformation under duress is at the nexus of this excellent wartime drama by noted Dutch filmmaker Fons Rademakers. The setting is Holland under German occupation and young Ducker (Lex Schoorel) is surviving the war and an unhappy marriage the best he can. Then one dark night, a mysterious secret agent who looks remarkably like Ducker except for his black hair, parachutes into the young man’s back yard. The secret agent, Dorbeck, enlists Ducker’s help in his missions against the Germans, and before much time has elapsed, Ducker has joined the resistance fighters and is actively engaged in the anti-German, underground war effort. He becomes daring, confident, imaginative — all the qualities missing in his earlier life. But then the war ends and brings an ironic twist to Ducker’s career as a brave patriot.
    Read More »

  • Peter Greenaway – The Death of a Composer: Rosa, a Horse Drama (1999)

    Peter Greenaway1991-2000ArthouseCultNetherlands

    IMDB Summary:
    This is a TV adaptation of a 1993 opera entitled “Rosa,” with a libretto by Greenaway and score by Louis Andriessen. “Rosa” is the first in a projected series of 10 operas, each dealing with the death of a famous composer – some real (Anton Webern, Jean-Baptiste Lully, John Lennon), others fictional. “Rosa” falls into the latter category; it tells the story of Juan Manuel de Rosa, a Brazilian who went to study music in America but spent most of his time in the cinema instead, becoming particularly entranced by Westerns. Now 32 years old and residing in an abandoned Uraguayan slaughterhouse, Rosa has become one of Hollywood’s foremost composers, specializing in (what else?) Westerns. He also has a beautiful 19-year-old fiancee, Esmeralda, but he pays her little heed, instead lavishing his attentions on a black mare named Bola. One day, a group of men attired as cowboys arrive at the abattoir and kill both Rosa and Bola; an investigation is conducted, with particular suspicion!Read More »

  • Paul Hegeman – That Pärt Feeling – the Universe of Arvo Pärt (2019)

    2011-2020DocumentaryMusicalNetherlandsPaul Hegeman

    The great composer Arvo Pärt at work, whilst the artists who perform his music and are inspired by it illustrate the different aspects of the phenomenon the man is.Read More »

  • Joris Ivens – Nieuwe gronden aka New Earth (1933)

    Joris Ivens1931-1940DocumentaryNetherlandsSilent

    Quote:
    The Zuiderzee Works episode of We Are Building was elaborated to the much longer film Zuiderzee by Joris Ivens in 1930. In 1934 Ivens used the same material, and additional footage, to make another version: New Earth. This time the film got a political message, and the editing became more compact and stronger, sustained by the stirring Music of Hanns Eisler. After the part on the reclamation and the closing of the dyke the film continues with images of the economic crisis and the poverty among labourers. Ivens opposes this with the speculation on the market: those who helped with the reclamation of new land for agriculture are now unemployed and starving, while grain is dumped at see to keep the prices up. The closing of the dyke is still one of the strongest editing sequences in the films of Joris Ivens.Read More »

  • Joris Ivens – Philips-Radio (1931)

    Joris Ivens1931-1940DocumentaryNetherlandsSilent

    An industrial film which shows the operations inside the Philips Radio plant: In a mêlée of activity, glassblowers make delicate glass bulbs. Machinery assists the bulb manufacture. A virtuoso glassblower begins a more complex tube used in radio broadcasting; it is then turned, fired, and sculpted. Conveyors carry partially completed units. Workers perform their various specific assembly-line tasks. Cases are manufactured and machined, wire harnesses are assembled, loudspeakers are produced. As radios near completion, they are run through a series of tests. Engineers and draughtsmen define future developments. In a closing stop-motion sequence, in a style reminiscent of Norman McLaren, a group of loudspeakers performs a playful dance. The film overall is a poetic depiction of an industrial process.Read More »

  • Johan van der Keuken – Het Witte Kasteel AKA The White Castle (1973)

    Johan van der Keuken1971-1980ArthouseDocumentaryNetherlands

    Het Witte Kasteel (1973)

    Part of Johan van der Keuken’s North/South series, The White Castle focuses on the impact of the West on the underclass: on the concrete realities of their daily life and on the way their existence is isolated and frustrated. Interweaving images of the Spanish tourist mecca of Formentera, a community center in Columbus, Ohio, and factories in the Netherlands, the film vividly illustrates the fragmented, alienated lives that the market economy produces and chillingly portrays what van der Keuken saw as “a conveyor belt [that] runs across the world.”Read More »

  • Paul de Nooijer – 100% De Nooijer (1972 – 2005)

    ExperimentalNetherlandsPaul de NooijerQueer Cinema(s)Short Film

    Selection of 14 experimental films of Paul (& Menno) de Nooijer

    De Nooijer’s first attempt at filmmaking was in collaboration with his former teacher Frans Zwartjes.From then on he made short experimental films and photos and combined the two.

    Paul and Menno (his son) have collaborated on numerous projects to produce video clips, commercials and short films. The autonomous work and the commercial work look similar, and elements used in the first return in the second and vice versa. But the commercial works are more straightforward, less layered in their meaning. Some deal with social (AIDS) or environmental issues (global warming).Read More »

  • Paul Verhoeven – Voorbij, voorbij AKA All Things Pass (1981)

    1981-1990DramaNetherlandsPaul VerhoevenTV

    *** contain spoilers ***
    During World War II in the Netherlands, resistance leader Arie is shot by Dutch SS man Niels. Arie’s comrades swear they’ll avenge his death.
    35 years later one of them, Ab, is confronted with Niels again. He decides to round up his old friends to kill him.
    However, they don’t want to do it or they’re not capable of doing it anymore. Only former communist Wout hasn’t forgotten his pledge and takes part in the execution.Read More »

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