Schatten der Vergangenheit

I must admit: Being north of 60, I've become jaded to the plethora of mediocre films that had been released over the past 20 or 30 years. They all seem to be cheap rehashes of prior films, created to make a quick buck from the continuously endless parade of streaming sites that be.

Daglicht (Daylight) took me by surprise because I wasn't expecting anything other than a run-of-the-mill Nordic noir. Perhaps I'm biased because I'm also autistic like a few of the characters in Daylight, but special mention should be made that the filmmakers did portray autism fairly accurately.

Also, I was surprised by the strong relation this film had to Rain Man. You can almost call this a Danish Rain Man given its similarities.

Like a lot of Scandinavian noir, the atmosphere was perfect as well as the pacing, music and direction. Was some of the acting a bit over the top? Maybe. Hollywood is also guilty of making sure you can tell someone is autistic from a mile away. Nevertheless, Daylight is worth the two hours spent watching it and I look forward to more films from the creators.

Screenwriters in all countries can learn a lesson from this remarkable thriller. Plot, characters, suspense and an indefinable quality, humanity.

Watching this film not only kept me guessing, even though you have a vague idea of where it is going, in a way that keeps you on edge until the very end. Sure, some of the "thriller" aspects are not up to the budgets of the best of Hollywood, but they work to the extent needed here.

The actors are top notch (though I doubt there are may hunks like Bo as hospital orderlies) and Fedja van Huêt, as Ray, in particular, does an excellent turn in his role.

If you want a thriller with something more, see this movie.

It's about when love turns evil. An attorney inadvertently finds out she has an autistic brother. Her mother has kept him under wraps for decades. He's serving time for murder. When she visits him she decides he's innocent. After some investigation into the matter she decides to spring him. She talks her boss at the law firm into taking the pro bono case and she's off! It's got some cliches that get a little tired, like everybody telling her to not investigate the matter any further, to what end people? Some of them, yes, they are heavily invested but only about half the people who try to thwart her investigation are. Other than that it's a great story using the device that the inmate can't speak for himself.

This is a TV-level or TV-like "drama in family" movie about Iris Boelens, a young single mother and lawyer, contending with an autistic child and the discovery that she has a brother who is locked up for a double murder --and who has autism also. Not much action (violence) or action related suspense in this movie. It is mainly psychological drama and suspense (thriller, I guess) that originates from this lawyer's dogged search for the truth about her brother and family and the people who want to stop her when she decides to investigate his crime and get him new representation.

Whether or not you warm to this movie depends on whether or not you care about the central character in it and/or the subject matter. Therefore, whether or not you are sympathetic to Iris Boelens and the problems and mystery of her family. Iris is a busy woman, juggling a demanding job and problem child who has been suspended from school. Her mother has a cool, no-nonsense facade but one has a sense that deep down she perhaps cares. She is taciturn; doesn't want to give Iris any info about her newly discovered brother. This leaves Iris no choice but to turn to her trusty computer and perhaps the Dutch version of Google. The movie grows on you if you're patient and has an interesting ending that actually made me say "Sh!t, I didn't see that coming". Love, Boloxxxi.

Daglicht is a Dutch thriller which for The Netherlands is a genre that rarely is made. It is even rarer to have a title that is made well. Diederik van Rooijen already proved to me in Taped he could handle the genre so I was looking forward of the this mystery we would be introduced to.

The viewer doesn't have to wait long for the mystery to appear and it is one that is compelling that maintains interest from the get go. It is layered enough to have all sorts of outcomes and that for a short while makes you really invested to watch. But I already figured out early on one important part of the riddle. Which (for me) made everything else less surprising and incredibly predictable. In one of the many reveals a character is introduced who is called Ray. This character is autistic in the same fashion as Raymond played by Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. In fact the way he moves and behaves is almost an exact copy of that character. For me personally this was a weak moment of film making. Fedja van Huêt is excellent, let there be no mistake about that. It his good acting and professionalism that the role prevents it from becoming a parody. Still it was hard to shake off the connection. This character said something that made me suspect on how the rest of story would unfold since a lot of focus was on this specific part of the mystery. In another reveal we get to see this supposedly clever scene where the son of Iris (Angela Schijf) shows his puzzle solving skills. And yes I would have agreed and been impressed also if not for the fact that I had seen it before in other thrillers were other autistic savants played important roles. What I am saying is that if you like me love the genre and have seen many movies from that genre a lot in the film will get predictable. Mind you, I know that enough people who don't watch as much will be able to be surprised and enjoy the viewing experience that is promised. I only had hope that the director would offer one twist more for thriller fans like me to also make it more interesting for us but sadly he did not. In stead we get a nice,touching and overall warm ending which for me worked well also and was good enough.

If I have to compare I think Taped is the superior thriller because that one maintains the suspense and tension throughout where as Daglicht relies more on the strength of mystery that in the end is not that strong. Still I think it is not a waste of time because the competent acting especially by Fedja van Huêt does give it that edge. The bigger names Derek de Lint and Monique van de Ven however are very much under used and don't really add that much which is a shame but not bothersome. As a big fan of the thriller genre I can only applaud the ambition to make films like these and it looks like it is headed into the right direction.