Die Noorderlinger

When you're watching an Alex van Warmerdam movie you know you're to get something interesting and unusual. He always fills his films with a large amount of surrealism but at the same time knows to keep his films accessible and watchable for the main stream public. It might very well be true that this movie is his best known and most appreciated movie.

It's not the type of movie with a clear point or purpose but this doesn't prevent this movie from being simply an enjoyable one to watch. This movie is mostly so fun to watch due to its many eccentric characters and unusual settings.

The entire movie is set in an housing development, that consists out of one long street, without pavement on the road, with a school and butcher shop. At the end of the road there is a bus-stop and an artificial planted small forest. This is their entire world. It's set in the '60's, which of course also gives the movie a certain atmosphere but really this movie could had also easily been set in modern time and it just wouldn't make that much different to the story or any of its characters.

The movie is filled with lots of eccentric characters. Every characters has somethings strange or unusual around him or her, some more extreme than others. It are mostly this quirky little aspects about each and every character that makes this movie such a fine comedy, since its not a movie with an awful lot amount of dialog and its also a rather slow moving movie, with long stretched shots.

The movie features some fine Dutch actors, though it seems sort of weird that the best and best known actors play insignificant supporting roles in the movie, such as Loes Luca and Jacques Commandeur. Jack Wouterse is a well known actor now but back in 1992 no one had ever heard of him and this also was one of his first ever roles. The most fun role is being played by Theo van Gogh, as Fat Willy, who constantly rides on his moped and terrorizes the street with it. I've always liked him better as an actor than as a director, or anything else. Like always, also Alex van Warmerdam plays a role in the movie and so does his wife, actress Annet Malherbe.

It's true that the movie sort of looses it as it heads more and more towards its end but overall this movie remains perfectly watchable throughout- and above all also really fun to watch.

7/10

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Great film, yes, humorous and clever. I spent a few months in Holland and saw the great contrasts between liberal Amsterdam and the almost Aamish conservatism of the countryside and its small villages. This film is an indictment of the religious puritanism and hypocrisy of the ' blind' , represented by the manic huntsman. It's rare to wish to see another human being blinded but here it feels like a much-awaited catharsis and it says something great about a Director who can make such extreme violence part of what the viewer himself feels is justified. Unlike Von Trier, who's violence disgusts and seems arbitrary and just stemming from his own mental illness, this Director here is fully in control of himself and his vision ( basically humane). For me the most irritating person is not the butcher, because while he is meant to seem animalist and piggish, his 'frustration' can be understood and is human. I don't really understand what his wife is meant to represent, and the prayer scenes outside their house, except to show religious extremism as hypocritical, inhuman and destructive of healthy love. It seems that only the boy, the dead girl, the black boy and the postmen are the only human beings worthy of that name in the village.

Bleak, funny yes, but very dark. Ultimately , DEPRESSING. Doesn't make me want to live in Holland. In fact, this seems like a film made by a Director very unhappy with the State of his own country, and very alienated. It is the humour of desperation and the end of the film is messy and offers no hope. The postman returns, meets the boy , and so what? What then? Back to a "happy life" in that village from Hell?

In the Dutch Dogville?

I don't think so.

Alex van Warmerdam is one of the very few Dutch directors whose films I can bear to watch. He has created a number of very good absurdistic movies (Abel, de Noorderlingen, de Jurk, kleine Teun), of which I liked de Noorderlingen best; its weird scenes are evidence of a wonderfully imaginative and free mind. Van Warmerdam has something of a voyeur, a trait which influences all his movies; what better setting could he choose than a hideously Dutch, `modern' village where all the people are continually spying on each other through their large front windows. Yet if you expect that all magic would have disappeared from such surroundings, think again.... there are fairies in the woods nearby and one inhabitant turns out to be holy.

I can tell you from personal experience that there exist Dutch people with a sense of humour, but if you don't believe me be sure to go and watch this movie.

I had a great time watching this black comedy which ranks high up there with the finest of the genre. It's not like any other movie I have seen before, but I think that if you like a movie like Delicatessen, you will also enjoy this one. I only wish it were available on DVD!

don't try to understand this movie if you haven't lived in holland for a considerable time, this movie portrays in a very ironical way, the narrowminded attitude of the dutch people in the 60's. it is sharp and down to earth at the same time. i don't think non-dutchman will appreciate this movie, but you can always try! i am from holland and i thought it was a brillant satire, with good perfomances of a few well known dutch actors (including the director who also plays the role of the postman).i give it an 8 out of 10.