A good movie

Since I have been living in the Netherlands, I have always been interested in Dutch movies. Even though this one is completely unknown here in Listal (I’m not the only who rated it so far…), it was actually a huge success in the Netherlands when it was released and it even won the Golden Calf of the best Dutch movie of the year. For Antonie Kamerling, who killed himself a couple of years ago, it was a breakthrough performance and everybody was surprised that a guy who only showed in a soap opera could be deliver such a heartfelt performance. I thought it was pretty good but I also thought it followed too much the pattern of similar Dutch movies, patterns which has been set ever since ‘Turks Fruit’ came out (sex, full frontal nudity, drugs, destructive and anti-social characters,…). Still, it remains a heartbreaking story with some terrific performances by Kamerling and by the young boy portraying the title character. To conclude, even though it is not really a masterpiece in my opinion, it remains a very well made drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Dutch movies.

7/10