Oorlogswinter (Martin Koolhoven, 2008)

I think I'm correct in saying that the very last article I wrote for iet and Freek's Holland Focus was a review of Martin Koolhoven's Brimstone.  I recently noticed the DVD release of that film on a supermarket shelf, and although it's not a movie I want to revisit especially soon (if at all), it prompted me to dig out Koolhoven's previous effort Oorlogswinter.  It's hard to believe that this film is now a decade old (Koolhoven let a full eight years pass between Oorlogswinter and its successor), and if you've never seen it, the tenth anniversary of the movie marks as good a time as any to familiarise yourself with a work that's greatly superior to the bloated, gruelling Brimstone.

Michiel (Martijn Lakemeier) is a Dutch teenager living under the Nazi occupation of WW2; he resents his mayor father (Raymond Thiry) for co-operating with the occupiers, but is in awe of his Uncle Ben (Yorick van Wageningen), who is part of the Dutch resistance.  As the Nazis clamp down on the resistance, Michiel finds himself privy to a piece of highly sensitive information regarding the location of RAF pilot Jack (Jamie Campbell Bower), who was shot down and has been hiding out in the woods.  Michiel finds the pilot and supplies him with food and medical assistance - the latter courtesy of Michiel's nurse sister Erica (Diep's Melody Klaver, excellent), who is attracted to the injured British airman.  Jack is desperate to get across the river to Zwolle, and Michiel risks (and loses) a lot in an effort to make the perilous crossing possible. 

With its focus on a boy enduring and fighting the Nazi occupation, Koolhoven's film carries echoes of Elem Klimov's masterpiece Come and See.  Klimov's film - which is one of the greatest war films ever made, and one you should seek out if you haven't already done so - appears to be an obvious reference point, although Koolhoven's treatment of the subject is far more traditional.  Which is almost a given; few films contain the nightmarish, hallucinatory qualities of Klimov's Byelorussian-set shocker.  But Koolhoven pulls off a trick much like one Klimov achieved in Come and See in showing a young protagonist dramatically age as he's exposed to the cumulative horrors of the war.  While Koolhoven's take on this isn't so spectacular or traumatic, the Michiel seen laughing and playing at the start of the film is soon replaced by an overburdened young man, and we do wonder if this visibly careworn figure can recapture any of his boyhood innocence.  Lakemeier is superb here, and he's entirely convincing as a boy growing up far too quickly.

While the film appears to settle down into something formulaic, the latter stages feature some real white-knuckle tension and several developments which haven't been obviously telegraphed.  Koolhoven may have dressed his film up as a routine WW2 tale, but it's perhaps this reassurance of sorts which enables him to pull the rug from under us (more than once) as the movie heads towards its dénouement.  The film gives the overall impression of merely being a solid, well-crafted tale, yet the more thought you give to it the more you notice the interesting flourishes Koolhoven has brought to proceedings.  Hindsight allows us to clearly see that this director has much more talent than his most recent film might suggest, but he needs to employ the kind of restraint which is present here yet is sorely lacking in the unbridled, overcooked Brimstone.  Oorlogswinter, which is based on Jan Terlouw's 1972 book of the same name, also demonstrates a fine economy of storytelling - a lot is packed into less than 100 minutes, whereas Brimstone took an awfully long time to get where it was going.

It might seem unfair to repeatedly, unfavourably compare Brimstone to Oorlogswinter, as beyond sharing a director there is not much else to link the two films.  But thinking of Koolhoven's career, it is disappointing that he didn't build on all the fine things he did with Oorlogswinter.  Clearly, he sees himself as an auteur, even dispensing with his first name on the opening titles for Brimstone - but the Koolhoven brand presumably (and paradoxically) means little to the English-language market the director was looking to make inroads into.  It's by no means uncommon for a filmmaker to misfire when they move outside of working in their first language, but Oorlogswinter (which, incidentally, features a fair smattering of English dialogue) signalled a director who'd be sufficiently savvy to sidestep such pitfalls.

Nearly one million people saw Oorlogswinter when it was first released in Dutch and Belgian cinemas, but it's still a film that deserves to be seen far beyond its home territory; unfortunately, on more than one occasion it has found itself bundled into a WW2 box set alongside some low-quality straight-to-DVD titles, and it deserves much more than that.  The UK R2 standalone edition of the DVD (which features the original Dutch/English/German audio track, plus English subtitles) can usually be had for a reasonable price.

Darren Arnold

Image: Dik Nicolai [CC BY-SA 4.0]

D'Ardennen (Robin Pront, 2015)

It's quite a coincidence that this film's title is very close to Dardenne, as the first hour could have very easily come from the minds of those acclaimed Belgian brothers.  Set against the backdrop of Antwerp, Robin Pront's film begins with brothers Dave (Jeroen Perceval, also co-writer) and Kenny (Kevin Janssens) bungling a robbery; Dave gets away, but Kenny is caught and is handed a nice stretch of jail time.  While Kenny is in prison, Dave becomes involved with Kenny's girlfriend Sylvie (Veerle Baetens).  Upon Kenny's release, Dave and Sylvie have a baby on the way but are understandably reluctant to tell Kenny, who unsurprisingly hopes to get back together with Sylvie.

Since Kenny's trial and imprisonment, Dave has been making a real effort to go straight, and now works in a car wash.  Thanks to his brother's efforts, Kenny - who is much more of a loose cannon than the quiet, thoughtful Dave - is reluctantly hired at the same place, but the pair are soon fired following a fracas involving Kenny.  Dave is under pressure from Sylvie to tell Kenny about their relationship, but the unwilling Dave's efforts to break the bad news are frequently foiled; meanwhile, Kenny suspects nothing of his brother, but rather thinks that Sylvie is romantically involved with the boss of a seedy nightclub where she works a few shifts.

While all of this works quite well as a drama in which familial tensions start to come to the boil, the film takes a sharp left turn at around the hour mark, where the action shifts to the forest region of the title.  By this stage, you would be forgiven if you'd forgotten that the film is called The Ardennes, but the two brothers venture there in search of Kenny's old cell-mate.  It's here that the fraternal squabbles will be resolved, albeit in an overwrought manner that's at odds with the film's carefully-constructed first hour.

This shift in both location and tone serves to undermine the film as a whole, and while the frozen Ardennes makes for a suitably atmospheric setting for the film to play out the high drama of its last couple of reels, it feels like there are two better, more satisfying films vying for your attention here; the first two thirds, as already mentioned, are more along the lines of the work of the Dardenne brothers, while the final half hour bears more than a passing resemblance to Fabrice du Welz's excellent Calvaire - a film which used a wintry Fagnes region to great effect.  The Ardennes is an odd hybrid, and while we've seen all of this stuff before, I don't ever recall seeing all of it in the same film.

While this jarring shift will be off-putting for many, the film is at least ambitious and does remain engaging for its duration.  Near the end, there's a great twist that I genuinely didn't see coming, but the film leaves you wishing that The Ardennes had stayed in the location of the title and another, separate film (Antwerp?) had been made.  There are a couple of good scenarios here, but each deserves their own time and space.  It's a curio, but by no means a disaster.  A region 2 DVD (in Dutch with English subtitles) is available.

Darren Arnold

Images: Diaphana

Souvenir (Bavo Defurne, 2016)

It's not too often that we see Isabelle Huppert starring in something as light and breezy as Souvenir, as the acclaimed actress is far more likely to turn up in much heavier fare such as the severe, austere works of Michael Haneke or Paul Verhoeven's feather-ruffling Elle.  Souvenir carries more than an echo of Copacabana (another Belgian film starring Huppert), and, as with that film, it's nice to see the actress operating in a different gear.  While Souvenir may be so slight it could just about blow away, Huppert's performance is typically magnetic and she glues the whole flimsy affair together; you strongly suspect that, without her presence, the film would be at the level of a forgettable TV movie.

Huppert's Liliane is a lonely factory worker who, several decades earlier and under the name Laura, nearly won the Eurovision European Song Contest (legal reasons?) but was pipped at the last by a Swedish act known as ABBA (who, it's alleged, cheated their way to the title).  Following this near miss, Laura separated from her husband-manager Tony (Johan Leysen) and drifted into obscurity.  Jean (Kévin Azaïs), a young temp at the factory, recognises her (his dad is a big fan, which highlights how many years have passed since the contest) and tries to convince her to come out of retirement just for one evening.  Although Liliane would rather stay out of the limelight, she agrees to help out this rather sweet young man, but soon the two are in a relationship and Jean is Laura's new manager, with the goal being to relaunch her singing career.

While Jean doesn't lack enthusiasm, he has no real clue about showbiz and has only just recently ditched plans to become a professional boxer.  While her youthful lover is able to secure several low-key (and very dispiriting) gigs, things hot up when Laura decides to again audition for the European Song Contest.  As Jean has very limited knowledge and experience, Liliane turns to Tony for help with her preparations for the big event; unsurprisingly, she doesn't tell Jean about this, thus telegraphing the drama which will unfold as the film reaches its climax. 

While Souvenir is all a bit too predictable, it again provides proof that Isabelle Huppert, arguably the world's greatest living actress, is capable of elevating the thinnest material into something worth watching.  It makes for a fun hour and a half (wisely, Defurne resists the temptation to spin things out for any longer), and while the May-September romance on display is hardly a new screen concept, there are a few touching (and amusing) moments along the way.  Souvenir made its way round most European countries in 2017, but a limited US theatrical release is planned for March; a region 2 DVD is available now.

Darren Arnold

Images: UniFrance