Wij

This is a terrible film, depending mostly on shock value. I thought this would be a nice movie watch while drinking, but I was surely disappointed

The film tries to portray a story of young adolescent people discovering life while engaging in all kinds of debauchery. The vile acts that are shown are partly based on events that have happend in real life at some point. Dissapointingly this is merly used to create shock value for the audience and as the story progresses none of the disturbing acts have a carthartic element to them. When you take all these disturbing acts and assign them to one group of people that act like its all a big joke, they just become shallow and not interesting at all. Their motives just seem dumb and futile. I couldn't wait for it to be over.

I find the film's only redeming quality to be how a kind of psychadelic form of cinematography was used, where you as the viewer feel confused as if you delve into the psychotic minds of these kids and how incoherent their story's about the events that took place are from each other. At least that is how I interpreted it.

Eight teens - four guys and four girls - are the best of friends. One summer, out of boredom they experiment with all manner of new means to entertain themselves. This degenerates into some extreme behaviour and will lead to tragedy.

Intriguing movie, told in a way that keeps you engaged and wondering what happened. By telling the story from the perspective of several of the teens, one at a time, you get fed enough information to get a piece of the picture, but not enough for the whole picture. This creates a great sense of mystery and makes you stick around for more.

However, when everything comes together and the secret is revealed, it is a bit disappointing. The revelation is rather flat and what develops from there feels a touch implausible. Is quite topical and thought-provoking though.

Difficult to understand even if you are Dutch speaking, as a certain quantity of spoken Dutch is in a local dialect. The script and directing are also way below standard.

Safe to say that this film is not worth seeing, even if it is based on fact. The only thing that stands out is male and female genitalia and sex. But this cannot save this rubbish, rather, if you like that sort of thing, watch a porn movie.

I didn't really get the point of "Wij". Was it just to pruriently show the sex lives of its teenage protagonists? Perhaps. But the movie makes no attempt at eroticism, and the full frontal nudity takes us by surprise because there's no build up to it. It appears to be trying to show us how everyday this behaviour is for its characters, and at that I guess it makes its point. But what is the wider point?

Eight teenagers - four boys and four girls - engage in increasingly depraved sexual behaviour during a hot summer in Belgium. The girls, particularly, seem to have no regard to their rights to their own bodies, flashing their bushes at oncoming cars (and causing a pile-up in the process) and playing games in which foreign items are inserted you-know-where. At one stage, somebody pretends to listen to earbuds that have their cord inserted into someone else's vagina.

The movie also features a death-by-insertion that may have to be seen to be believed.

So, that's the movie. The characters remain totally undifferentiated throughout. They never emerge with personalities or motivations. You don't even know who you're looking at half the time.

This material is the kind of thing US director Larry Clarke makes, and comparing it to his material reveals its limitations ever more. Clarke would have chosen a gritty photographic approach to the material, and may also have based the movie off a true story, to give it much needed weight.

As is, "Wij" is pretty forgettable.