Leef!

With Simon well over a year ago, I had high hopes for Dutch cinema. This was a great film, about genuine people dealing with all things life (and death) in a genuine way. At least it got some well-deserved recognition outside the Netherlands, although I'm not sure how the movie performed across the pond- but I guess it stirred things up quite a bit in the US because of its daring content.

Anyway, for those expecting Leef! to prolong the high standard set by Simon, prepare to be vastly disappointed. The film is incredibly pretentious in style and presentation. Why did it have to take 108 minutes of awkward dialogue and often pointless scenes to get to that point? I have no problem with it being pretentious, but not living up to it I do have a problem with. The camera-work and editing, especially in the first half, are overly artsy, sometimes hysterical and often completely unnecessary. On the contrary, it harms some of the (admittedly fine) performances in such a way that we cannot relate to the characters in any way, except for maybe Sybille, played by Anne-Wil Blankers, a great actress who is wholly out of place here. Jeroen Krabbé, always a treat, has a small part which is fine, but ruined by the horrific editing in that particular scene. A shame, I say.

The dialogue is typical Dutch theatre fare, in that it is overly pretentious and artificial, which is a major gripe I have with Dutch theatre anyway. Even though this might have worked better on stage, it's still far too stiff and and insignificant to make the audience relate to the characters on an emotional level. Why not just trim it down and get to the point? Being mundane is no sin if the delivery is good. Here we the see actors struggling with lines they themselves most likely found to be awkward, which explains the wooden acting on the whole, I guess.

Overall, what could have been a wonderful film about (family) life is a missed opportunity. This film gets lost in its own pretentiousness because of its lack of content and genuine emotional depth. Which, ultimately, to me, makes it a pointless affair.

For a movie that intends to celebrate life, this movie has the paradoxical quality that everything in it is highly artificial. As a girl suffers from a heart attack, for example, the person who is responsible for this dies in a car crash, so that his heart can be implanted by the girl - and to make it even more far-fetched: the car accident is a reminiscence of an almost-drowning-incident more than ten years earlier with the same actors (the mother Sybille saving the life of the boy, saves then in fact the life of her daughter). These forced plot lines are to be fond almost every scene.

The dialogs contain a similar paradox. The real subject of all speech is never named, yet the single sentences are perfectly clear and fit too perfect and very artificial to the things said before. This creates a sense of deepens that may do it well on stage (the scenario of Maria Goos was originally a lay) but on television it makes your stomach turn more and more as the film advances. And then I have not mentioned all drama and the sweet ending that catalyze this.

This movie is about how important it is to live your life to the fullest. To live your dreams, follow your instincts, to resist social pressure, stay true to yourself, to become who you really are. Leading character Anna, a hard-working wife and mother of two daughters, has always wanted to be a writer. But her work, husband and two daughters have always stood between her and her passion. A sick daughter, an unfaithful husband, a demanding old mother, and her own social commitment make it hard for her to sit down and write her autobiography. Then dramatic events make her realize that she has only one mission: to be a writer, to finally live! ('Leef'!) Several different sub-stories develop and finally come together in a breathtaking, jubilant climax. Award-winning script-writer Maria Goos is at her best here, and so is director Willem van de Sande-Bakhuysen, who was terminally ill when the shooting started and who died shortly after 'Live! was completed.

I was studying at the University of Amsterdam last year when I would pass the movie theater in Haarlemstrat(sp) and see the announcement for the film. I wanted so much to see the film especially because of Monic Hendrickx, but the film was not subtitled yet for English. Recently I found it on Amazon. It had English subtitles and it was in PAL, but since I own several PAL movies, I now own a portable DVD player that plays all regions. Alas, after a long wait, I was not disappointed. It is a celebration of life and I felt inspired by it. I hope this film is more widely recognized because it was perfect in every way. A few years back Zeus and Zo, another Dutch film, was nominated for the Academy Awards. I have nothing against Z&Z, but Leef should not be overlooked.

This film is a delicate and thoughtful celebration of life, not only because of the beautiful rendering of family-life in its highs and lows but also because of the uplifting message director Van De Sande Bakhuysen leaves with his audience. For somebody who had to live with the knowing that he would die of cancer, the director urges the audience to stop looking for guilt or even forced happiness and start life from this moment on. The film itself may be masked propaganda for conformity and bourgeoisie, but delivers a satisfying and tear jerking portrait of love lost and refound but most importantly about the responsibility we all have not only to make ourselves happy but also the people around us, who rely on us for their joy in life.