A good movie

Ever since I have been living in the Netherlands, I have tried to watch a lot of Dutch movies and I was especially intrigued by this one since it won the Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film. The funny thing is while it received international acclaim, it was actually snubbed in its home country as ‘Zusje’ eventually won the Golden Calf of the Best Dutch movie of the year (in my opinion, ‘Zusje’ was indeed a superior movie). With this in mind, I had some rather high expectations but, eventually, even though I did enjoy it, I can’t say I was really amazed by the whole thing. The point is that it is definitely above your average Dutch production  but somehow I had a rather hard time to connect with the plot and the characters. Basically, you have a succession of rather colorful characters, always gravitating around Antonia, the main character, and I guess the makers tried to show their whimsical way of life but I had a rather hard time to care about what they were going through. For Marleen Goris, the director of this movie, it was the start of an international career, even though none of her following movies were really successful. To conclude, even though I was slightly disappointed, it remains an intriguing feature and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Dutch movies. 

7/10