Het debuut

Appalled bij seeing pictures of a pretty young girl in cinemapromotion, only to draw more people to this very mediocre movie, directed by a self pronounced feminist director. Mind you, not appalled by the pictures, but by the way this female director made "this movie". . It is not even a mediocre coming of age movie, it is pure exploitation from a director who wanted obviously to make a big name with this movie. That she casted her own daughter as well in this movie also does not help at all. Pure garbage !!

(1977) The Debut/ Het debuut (In Dutch with English subtitles) DRAMA

Adapted from the novel by Hester Albach, co-written and directed by Nouchka van Brakel, it has 14 year old Carolien (Marina de Graaf) bike racing with her peers to the school. And when she come's back from school, she along with her parents of Peter (Dolf de Vries) and Anne (Kitty Courbois) are at the airport to greet her dad's old best friends just arriving from Zambia, Africa, Hugo (Gerard Cox) and his wife, Rita (Pleuni Touw). And as a result of Carolien agreeing to show them to look at a place she begins to sense a connection with Hugo when he began to jump on top of a bed like she was doing.

Like most movies about adolescent s/he may look 14, but if imdb is correct that the actress playing Carolien by the name of Marina de Graaf that she was born in 1959 then she was already an adult when she played the role of an adolescent, for she would have been 19 years old during the movie's release. And may have been 18 when she played the role of a 14 year old when the age of consent in the Netherlands is according to Google is 16 years of age. And I get it, it's the notion of an older man making out with an underage almost twice her age can rub some viewers the wrong way, except that 1) like Lolita, it is adapted from an actual novel, and #2) I am presuming, without reading the novel, it is based on the character in which a 14 yrs old is required. And in the film it is supposed to depict a generation gap, as Carolien is young and active who still loves to eat chocolate bars, and dance in dance floors at a disco, too wild for an older person who lives with her parents.. As opposed to her older counterpart, Hugo who is besides being older, he is inactive with a job and a wife he has to take care of, for the only thing they both have in common is perhaps the love making, she yearned for maturity and maturity is what she got she felt she does not get that from her peers. There's a scene where a former peer attempts to make an advance towards her and she tries to make an attempt to reject his advances very adamently. The scene where Caroliene is ridiculed by her friends/ peers as a result of telling her best friend, Tanja (Sandrien van Brakel) making out with a guy old enough to be her dad which very slowly pushes them away from them if she continues to see him. She realizes the relationship can no longer proceed. What is asinine about this, was that at the beginning, Hugo appeared to be just as active and silly as much as Carolien but it's like, later on he's no longer that type of person anymore, which is it? In other words it's a cross between 1962 "Lolita" and the 1977 French film" Un moment d'égarement" or in English terms "Lolita" and "Blame It On Rio". I give this movie the same rating as I give "Lolita" which is a 6 out of 10 nothing more nothing less.

This woman's lib director made this debut with a full lengt movie, along with her two main actors, Marina de Graaf and Gerard Cox. The story is not new ; young girl falls in love with elderly man. Why Nouchka van Brakel choose this (lousy) script to make her debut movie is beyond my comprehension. Perhaps something that was lingering from her own past made her decide to do this terrible flick. The directing sucks, the acting is cardboard character trying to remember their lines, subsequently the dubbing is also awfull; a chance missed: perhaps in dubbing they could ad some sincerity and believability, Alas, this is a movie to quickly forget. I gave it two stars instead of one, because the young actress, Marina de Graaf shows some attempts to act naturally, her mother in this "movie" gives away one of many of her bad performances in Dutch films. The man this young girl falls in love with, is mediocre and let you think why the hell a young girl would fall in love with him . Thinking, the director of this exploitation maovie calls herself a Feminist, you wonder why she adds so many nude scenes of a young girl into her debut. Stinks !

I was shocked to find out that this was a debut of a woman director. I was sure this movie was a male fantasy of older men being wanted by a younger woman, in this case , a 14 year old "woman" or child. Not sure what the age of consent is in Netherlands but most likely the whole story is based around a statutary rape. That's why I was shocked when I learnt this was made by a woman director.

To understand this film it helps if you've seen the director's 1979 work "A Woman like Eve". Across the two films there's an obvious attempt to portray women's lives and emotions and also to make some comment on the mores of society (at that time).

The film has a dated 70's look to it but it also makes it interesting in a time capsule kind of way. Is the nudity exploitative and there to help sell tickets? Or an attempt to break down taboos by showing it and asking "what's all the fuss about?" Seeing some of the director's other work makes me think the latter, though it's probably a bit of both.