Das Mädchen Keetje Tippel

This film is weighed down by its deeply inadequate ending which does not seem to want to connect itself with the themes of greed and hunger relayed throughout. Tonally, it's incomplete.

Whilst the record indicates that Rob Houwer is part of the problem as to why the ending is the way it is - it's frustrating to think that this can't be ranked alongside Verhoeven's more accomplished works like Starship Troopers, from what it could have been...

This movie details the struggle of young Dutch women,Keetje Tippel (Monique Van De Ven) from the countryside who moves with her family to Amsterdam in search of a better life only to find themselves living among filth, vermin and squalor in a slum. She finds work in various jobs where conditions are horrible and she is subjected to constant sexual harassment and eventually rape.

Finally she becomes a prostitute which ends up being her gateway to the good life as she becomes mistress to the banker, Hugo (Rutger Hauer) and later the respected wife of Hugo's wealthy friend.

This is an expose of the Dutch class-system in the 19th century and has socialist and feminist overtones. It ranks among the best of 1970's Dutch cinema and is easily the highlight of Monique Van De Ven's career.

Warning! Although there is some nudity and sexuality it is not done in celebration of sensuality but rather explores the dark side of exploitation of sex. This is a very serious film and not for those looking for light entertainment.

From this movie, it is easy to see how the director made it out of Holland and landed in mainstream Hollywood. He takes a very serious subject, extreme poverty and how it leads to social uprising, and adds his personal light touches that almost make you forget the political subtext. The "finger shadow" scene before the rape was a touch of cinematic genius that I almost missed the first time around.

The ultimate lesson seems to me to be, of course, that we are all whores, it just depends on how much we can afford to spend on clothes.

One question, if she was so poor, how did she keep her roots died blonde?

Seriously, judging by this film, you'll be molested and forced into prostitution the moment you step off the boat/plane etc.

If you have ever watched Robocop, Total Recall or Starship Troopers and thought to yourself "Man, I wonder what would this director would be like giving us some sort of period drama set in the 19th century Holland starring Rutger Hauer, and I'd love to see his arse, balls and especially him licking melted chocolate off someone else's tongue", then this is the film for you!

I mean if that doesn't sound funny enough already, you've got drowned puppies, mothers forcing their kids into prostitution, Jimmy Saville types trying to get young Jimmy to show them his tummy banana, and a woman dying of tuberculosis just after having been molested by a doctor. Jesus, what else do you want from a comedy? Maybe this film wasn't a comedy. I don't know. It was kind of worrying that every single person in Amsterdam wanted to molest Katie. Seriously, everybody wanted a bit. She was even molested by an orderly in the hospital so that she was clean enough for the doctor to molest her. Twice.

For me, the most worrying part was when Katie worked for the hat guy and was doing shadow puppets on the wall and I thought to myself 'wouldn't it be hilarious if the next shadow you saw on the wall was the hat guy's tadger' and then lo and behold we get to see the shadow of an erect slag hammer on the wall. Man, I have the same mindset as the guy who directed Showgirls.

This film is too well made and has too high of a budget to be crap and is in a certain kind of way entertaining. It's grim stuff, but I can see why Paul went on to be a hot shot director. Rutger also worth a look here but he's dubbed, which only adds to the madness.

And this was a true story? F*cking seriously?

I recorded this movie a few weeks ago from our local community television station Triangle's night broadcast. I was surprised to see this on their schedule, as it's usually the lowest rate affair. The situation was another example of a great work getting lost in another vast video copy collection.

I was excited to be seeing an early movie from a director I always admired. I'd only ever seen his Hollywood work, and was especially fond of his Sci-Fi classics growing up. As others recognize, Verhoeven unashamedly puts into his films, his honest impression of the societal constructs we humans consistently find ourselves in. That regular criticism of the complexities of human nature, beyond the norms of each film's particular genre, has always resonated with my world view.

I finally watched this film this morning. As it started it was obvious the image quality was very poor, not helped by early scenes being predominantly in the dark. Not surprisingly the character's voices were dubbed into English, but were often mismatched or exaggerated, unfitting for the film. It seems to be the UK version I saw, yet some accents were American. I always try to watch a film in it's original intended language, but it seems the foreign films on the local community station are only ever poorly dubbed video copies.

Despite the poor quality of the copy I saw (the video company's logo even popped up irregularly in the bottom corner of the image), this film really amazed me. Much of the reasons why have been detailed by the few other comments on this site. The biggest flaw of the story for me was that the film ended too suddenly. This seems a common element to films the further back in cinema history you go. I actually appreciate a well crafted credits sequence, easing the viewer out of the film's world, and allowing reflection. Even at nearly 2 hours long, I felt my interest would have been sustained for a little bit longer.

There is a DVD listed here with 5 of Verhoeven's films in their original Dutch form, with English subtitles. I'd like to see this one again, and the rest of his early creations, which others consider even better. Rutger Hauer is also a great, varied yet charismatic actor, and it seems his best work might be with Verhoeven.