Matterhorn

I happened to catch Matterhorn by accident today on the Netherlands Film Festival, and boy, what an accident it was. It would be a good film, if this was supposed to be an exercise in nothingness. This film completely left me cold. Our main protagonist is a somewhat fundamentalist Christian believer, and I don't know if the intention was to try and make him 'deep' with an expressionless face and hardly any words spoken throughout the film, but I sure was convinced nothing actually happens in the man's brain, and whatever he decides to do, seemed to be completely random fluke occurrences all-the-time. He gives shelter to what appears to be a homeless, mentally handicapped guy. We see our protagonist do other completely random fluke actions now, the reaction from the tightly knit together Christian fundamentalist church on this, and... that's about it. There's no humor, there's no tragedy, the characters are about as bland as haystacks, it isn't even realistic, but to call it absurdistic is also giving it way too much credit. This film truly is, absolutely nothing. Stay away from this one, the most unoriginal people who ever existed appear to have been working together to make their masterpiece, and have succeeded.

This movie is just sweet. It has an eerie vibe but that makes it interesting. Faith, love, education, nurture and nature, it's all there when two men who seem to have noting similar, meet in a setting of strict religion and a narrow minded little village. Then events take a weird turn. If you can appreciate a subtle, slow, weird movie made with love this is your kind of thing.

I rarely like Dutch movies, because the stories and acting are usualy bad. But this one... I love it! It has humor, drama and it's touching! The director and the actors seemed to have had fun with it, because it really shows! I can understand if you watch this the first time it can seem like a weird movie, but it's a masterpiece!

I luckily was given a hint by a friend not to miss this movie and I'm very grateful for it! What can I say? A must see. This movie is a masterpiece. It's hilarious, sad, touching, weird, clever and simply beautiful. Perfectly composed and I loved the look of the movie. All actors are great. Needless to say that the soundtrack is wonderful as well. A rare, very special, very unique piece of art, that left me breathless, happy and uplifted in my seat where I stayed even 5 minutes after the credits were through. I give it 10 stars as there is nothing that I didn't like and there is nothing that I would change or would have wished to be different. Sad it can be seen so seldom on the big screen, as that's where it should be watched. I would watch it again if I had the possibility. Please don't miss it!!

If you ever want to see a great film that is bonkers, here it is. Yes, it moves like a glacier. That's the point. You either get it, OR you don't.