Boven is het stil

a cold movie. interesting not exactly for story but for wise manner to create its atmosphere. a man and his sick old father. that is all. slices of silence, dialogs as gray circles, the slow story, fragments of past. a movie as support of reflection. or picture of society. or, only, as need of freedom. a film who reminds many for its spirit, images or relation between characters. but it remains different. for the force of suggestion. for beginning and end image, for the love-cruelty-fatigue mixture.a remarkable performance by Jeroen Willems.and inspired music. one of that stories about small ordinary stuffs . in perfect science of exposure.

A typical example of the prevailing trend among new low budget independent art house film makers today.

What's the hallmark of such works, compared to the art house movie of yesterday ? What you might call an extreme kind of minimalism that comes perhaps because of the empowering nature of new technology. Striped away are all the once essential components of a good film. It's a purist aesthetic but what does it leave us ?

We're left with work which is very firmly located in what historically we recognise as 'realism', hyper accentuated by an unnatural stripping away of the spoken word as anything but an indicator of underlying feeling. Sets and props are 'realist' and functional but encounters are strictly subservient to the re-ordered sets of directorial priorities. Typically nature features as an element is such films and it is found as such here.

The problem with this currently prevailing approach to making cinema is that is is somewhat repetitive in that it can be seen in many films being released today. It's as though the obsession to create the conditions that capture feeling entropy creative powers in each director in exactly the same way. The film maker becomes trapped by the schema which dictates the whole form of the work, added to which,in a gesture of self intensification, any attempt, if wanted, to veer away from the strategy is simply disallowed by the form itself.

The result is, well to be frank boring. Hasn't anyone told this new generation of film maker artists who are self confessedly preoccupied with the nature of feeling that the problem with feeling is that it doesn't go anywhere, lead to anything and is essentially nihilistic and inward bound. It's also notoriously difficult to convey or control in film, often leading to long empty cinematic voids whose best asset is the slowing down of pace. The idea that there is some kind of key to unlocking the cinematic propensity to convey the strata of human feeling is akin to the search for philosopher's stone. Does someone need to tell this generation to grow up and face reality ?

Talking of reality, the cliché of reality achieved through this technique needs to be scrutinised and questioned. I would propose that the realism shown here is in fact highly distorted by the entropic effect of the filmic technique which is so bent on prioritising feeling over plot or narrative.

In reality, a farm house can be a hive of activity and the stripped down conversation required for such films as these is highly unnatural and stylistic. The emerging untold story is the plight of the enigma of a gay farmer who is somewhat incidentally tossed into the mix yet is actually a radical and little explored subject. But nothing is given away, largely to maintain the conceit of feeling manifested over narrative. This represents a missed opportunity. The story is not being told. The hinted at relationship between the farmer and the milk collector only highlights that sense of something strategically avoided, if not entirely ignored. The addition of a gay responsive young farmhand becomes almost ludicrous, something closer to an isolated gay farmer's wet dream than anything real and yet the proliferating gay theme is integrated without any realistic sense of consideration or interrogation. Every gay male would comprehend that in reality if three gay farm workers were to converge in such a manner it should be something incredible and very unusual or unexpected. Perhaps a lot would even be discussed. The presence of this gay theme exposes the lack of realism at play here because something very natural is missing. I felt that the director used gay people for her own end whilst ignoring a story that most probably needs to be told.

In the end nothing is clear. The problem with these feeling films is that they leave us with no clarity, with nothing but elemental sensation. A bird, a smell, a bleat, a rustle. A hinted at theme in a throw away line. A lot of guess work. Rather than hover in this unsatisfying threshold, the poetically minded should leap fully into the 'other side' and meanwhile allow stories to reveal and tell us what needs to be told.

The fact that this methodology is currently being repeated over and over again by today's film makers adds nothing to the cause. In fact it conveys a troubling view of a generation so traumatised by the staggering quantities of information and knowledge now available because of new technology that they've backed themselves into a corner from which they must emerge and for which only the totally poetic can cater. Such films as these in the end are neither one nor the other. Meanwhile one asks with concern, which film makers have really got a handle on reality ?

The work of the Dutch director Nanouk Leopold isn't know here at all. Perhaps that's because the films she makes are not only uncommercial but also uncompromising. "It's all so quiet", which she made in 2013, is, for the most part, a depressingly grim study of loneliness and sexual repression as well as of old age and family relations, in this case between a father and son. Helmer is a farmer living with, and caring for, his old and infirm father. There doesn't appear to be much love or affection between them; it's as if Helmer can't wait for his father to die.

Nothing much happens. Much of the time we simply watch Helmer go about his daily routine, at first alone and then with the help of handsome young farmhand Henk. There is very little communication between any of the characters; this is a very austere picture, shot in bleached colours that are almost monochromatic. Once upon a time you might have said Bresson or Dryer could have made this, (Helmer also keeps donkeys), and it isn't called "It's all so quiet" for nothing. This is a film in which the sounds of silence dominate. Not easy viewing then, but remarkable nevertheless.

This is a Dutch German co production presented in Dutch with an original title of "Boven is het stil". It is about Helmer who is a farmer who lives with his bedridden father. He looks after the farm and the old man with a kind of determined grimace. He seems to shun anything that would make him happy- having created a world for himself where may as well be totally alone.

Then he hires a young helper in the shape of Henk (Martijn Lakemeier – 'the young boy from 'Winter in Wartime'). This seems to bring a change and as well as looking after the farm he starts to think about himself and awakens feelings he is forgetting to suppress.

Now it is hard to say very much about this without spoiling the plot or making it appear to be a bit dull. This is not for action fans or those who like everything spelled out. There are a lot of silences here with little actually happening. This I felt highlighted the lack lustre existence and the loss of opportunity that Helmer is going through. Some would call this 'lyrically paced'; but it does have its moments and it has a brooding quality that made me want to watch it to the end. And I must say I am glad I did, this is one for people who like their films to sometimes be a bit different.

I saw this film at the Berlinale 2013 film festival, as part of the Panaroma Special section. It was the world premiere, in a large venue with over 1,500 booked seats. Director Nanouk Leopold appeared on stage before the screening, and was offered the opportunity for an introductory address. She refrained from talking about the film itself. Instead she told that her last film was seen by 3,000 people in total, and now she was already halfway. A significant part of the crew was present and called on stage after the screening. There was only one notable exception: Jeroen Willems, who played the main character, but he died last December. There was no Q&A (but the festival website contains a link to an enlightening 47 minutes video of the press conference).

I would not be surprised when many viewers nowadays will say that not much is happening in this film. There are a few notable events, spread evenly over the running time, mixed with long intervals of boring farming routine and domestic chores. Father and son don't talk much. There are other dialogs, also limited to the bare essentials, with children from the neighborhood, the cattle merchant, the milk truck driver, and on some sparse social events. A woman living nearby brings an occasional cake, for all of us clearly with hidden intentions, but nothing comes out of it. Contrary to what would be a normal thing to do in a small community, people that come by are not asked to come inside for some coffee.

All of this tells us something, albeit not very outspoken. Notable quote from the father: "Why do you hate me so much?" From time to time we get some hints what could be the cause of their difficult relationship. It may have something to do with beatings when a child. This came up when Helmer talked about the hands of the farm help, being very different from the hands of his father that were only used for beating. On another occasion came about that Helmer's brother Geert died young (drowned), and that Helmer assumed that the father felt being stuck with the wrong son (father seemed not to remember this, but the suggestion is very clear). In small bites we get to build the underlying picture, if only when we allow ourselves to pick up the pieces lying around.

The slow pace of the whole film nicely blends in with farm life as it is in reality, at least as it is for a dying breed of small scale farmers. I recognize this way of life from my own youth. The farm where I grew up, was sold by my father just before the time came to scale up the business, which was something he did not want to at his age. Farming at that time had its peak moments of course, like the harvest, but most of the year was a tedious daily routine. For me it was nice and quiet way to pass the day, something to plunge in when my parents were on a well deserved holiday. Such a small period of a few weeks was very well bearable to experience a life seemingly far away from the city. Life on a farm as portrayed in this film does remind me of those days, very well done I must say, luckily avoiding the rosy view mostly associated with country life.

The last conversation between father and son before his death seems to have more contents than the total of all earlier conversations they ever had, at least that is the impression left to us. This is the moment that much of what happened earlier comes together. It underlines in hindsight several things that went past us, allowing us afterwards to connect the dots. Is it a humane thing to do to us, viewers, to postpone this until the final scene? It is, if you allow this film a fair chance to tell the story the way it is told here.

Anyway, I gave the maximum score for the audience award when leaving the theater. Is it due to the remembrance of the quiet life on a farm when I was young, which was certainly triggered while seeing this movie? But even when I leave that out, we still have a compelling view on someone changing to a different person, freeing himself from his past and what others expect from him.