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To watch or not to watch? I will tour around Amsterdam’s cinemas and answer this crucial question every Friday. Without mercy, of course. Sucky movies will be slaughtered, cinematographic pearls will be appreciated as such. Or the other way around. After all, good taste is in the eye of the beholder.
De Heineken Ontvoering
A lot of us youngsters probably don’t even know this really happened. 1983 is of course a while ago, but still the kidnapping of Freddie Heineken is one of the biggest kidnapping cases the Netherlands has ever known. (Followed in 1987 by the kidnapping of Gerrit Jan Heijn, yes.. related to the guy from the supermarket).
Director Maarten Treurniet (De Passievrucht) tried to make an interesting, psychological action film, with Rutger Hauer starring, brilliantly, as Heineken. But there is one thing that annoyed me the whole time: why is Willem Holleeder not portrayed in this film? All the other three original kidnappers are there, so why isn’t Holleeder? Was Treurniet afraid he would have a problem with the big criminal (still in jail)? We all know that at first, the actor Reinout Scholten van Asschat would play the young Holleeder. Later they changed his role into Martin Erkamps, who only had a small part in the kidnapping. Holleeder tried to forbid this film, nonetheless. Intriguing! And the film is as well. The actors are great: scary and funny at the same time, Amsterdam in the eighties is really brought back to life and, although you know the ending, you still want to know what will happen in the next scene.
Watch this film in Cineville’s Het Ketelhuis. And Pathé (all of them).
Medianeras
It’s easy to feel lonely in a big city and it’s also easy to make a film about that. Just film a large crowd of people in the street, minding their own business, and then focus on one single person. A person with an unhappy look on his or her face. There you have it: loneliness. Medianeras tells the story of this emotion a bit differently, by filming the huge buildings in Buenos Aires. How the hell are Martin, a slightly depressed web designer, and Mariana, an architect working as a window dresser, ever going to find each other? Every once in a while, their roads cross on. They even have a ‘chat’ via internet, they buy candles in the same shop at the same time, but they don’t really meet. Turns out, the only thing Martin had to do was to put on a certain kind of sweater. Warm and charming. The film, I mean.
Watch this film in Cineville’s Rialto, Het Ketelhuis and Cinecenter.
Circumstance
I had to explain a lot of things to my younger sister while watching this film. Like, when the vice squad invades a club and everybody flees for their lives. “Partying like that is forbidden in Iran.” Big eyes from my 19 year old sister. Or when the father of one of the leading girls says: “One day we can swim together”, and dives into the sea. “Girls aren’t allowed to swim”, I explained to the big eyes.
Undoubtedly, everything in this film would make the Iranian government very unhappy: nudity, gay sex, night life, alcohol, drugs, indirect criticism on the regime, and so on. Just like A Separation, Circumstance is a fascinating film about the modern Iranian society. Due to the theme, debuting director/screenwriter Maryam Keshavarz had to film her taboo-breaking story about two Iranian girls, who are lovers, in Libanon. Good thing that didn’t stop her: Keshavarz won the Audience Award at this years Sundance Film Festival.
Watch this film in Cineville’s Rialto.
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