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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 films 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.
Alleen maar nette mensen
If you haven’t heard about Alleen maar nette mensen, you probably lived in a cave for a while. In 2009 this book (by Robert Vuijsje) came out and caused lots of commotion. (Black) women felt offended, because Vuijsje wrote about negro women with big butts in the Amsterdam Bijlmer. The story is full of stereotypes like that, but other ethnic groups are mocked as well. The protagonist David Samuels has much in common with Vuijsje, so the writer was the epicentre of hard criticism. Just like Vuijsje, Samuels is a guy from an intellectual Jewish family in Amsterdam Oud-Zuid. He doesn’t like white, Jewish girls. No, Samuels has a thing for big black women. And they don’t live in Oud-Zuid, so he does an ‘expedition’ to the Bijlmer. Worlds are colliding…
This book asked for a film adaptation, and now it’s finally here. Géza Weisz is a good choice for the role of David, who’s often held for a Moroccan dude. Too bad Weisz isn’t such a good actor, he’s overshadowed by Jeroen Krabbé, Annet Malherbe (playing his parents) and Imanuelle Grives (as his black girlfriend Rowanda). These three give the film the right comical tone, while Weisz is just trying to keep up.
Alleen maar nette mensen is the most successful film adaptation I’ve seen in the last few years. Now I finally get why people were so shocked and upset after reading the book. Some things are way heavier on a big screen than on paper. Go check this out!
Watch this film in Pathe (all of them).
Dans la Maison
O yeah, François Ozon (Potiche, 8 Femmes, Swimming Pool) made a new film. Dans la Maison is about a bored teacher, who teaches French at a high school. The role of teacher Germain is played by Fabrice Luchini, a man who can be tragic and comical at the same time. When he finally has a student with some writing talent in his class, he starts to stimulate this boy to write more. This 16 year old Claude Garcia (Ernst Umhauer) can only write about the ‘normal family’ of his friend and class mate Rapha Artole (Bastien Ughetto). To make the story more interesting, Germain shows Claude how he can manipulate this middle class family into intriguing novel characters. Reality and fiction are becoming more and more intertwined. It has to go wrong at some point. Ozon tried to make a psychological drama, but he loses focus at some point. Dans la Maison could have been more pleasantly frightening, if Ozon didn’t want to be so witty all the time. Still, this film is one to watch thanks to the good acting of Luchini, Kristin Scott Thomas (as his wife) and Umhauer.
More good news: I can give 2×2 tickets away for this film! Tell me in whose house you would like to snoop around and why you would like that. Send your most original answer to anouk@overdose.am before Monday and maybe you’ll win 2 tickets for Dans la Maison.
Watch this film in Cineville’s EYE, Cinecenter, Rialto and The Movies.
Little Black Spiders
Back in the ’70s it used to be very normal in Belgium for teenage mums to give up their baby. The story could be seen as an indictment of the catholic church, but director and co-screenwriter Patrice Toye just wanted to tell a story about a group of girls, friendship and resilience. Little Black Spiders is about Katarina (debuting Line Pillet) and her time in a hospital for young pregnant girls. She’s very naive, but learns more about life from the down-to-earth Roxanne (Charlotte De Bruyne).
Toye switches tone of voice a couple of times. Sometimes Little Black Spiders is romantic and innocent, in other scenes the film is more oppressive. The end is way too melodramatic, for sure.
Watch this film in Cineville’s De Balie and Studio K.
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