Ik ook van jou

So I went to see the movie "Ik ook van jou". I thought it was quite nice. The story unfolds rather jerky here and there, but I think Ruud van Hemert (the director) has a great eye for pictures. Some of the camerawork and lighting is really awesome.

But what surprised me most was the use of music composed by the collective "Normally Invisible": The intro-sequence was rather shocking and unconventional, then it switches over to 'standard' John Williams type of scoring. Then it reveals more depth to the characters as the story moves along. The composers are obviously not afraid of using breakbeats, dark ambient spheres, experimental sound design and romantic 'classic' scoring.

One of the most impressive scenes was Rezas birthday party where the music really hits you as it morphs from hectic drum'n'bass/metal to transparent sounddesign ending in a rather 'esoteric' sphere... just amazing!

I can only say that these guys know what they are doing. Keep an eye out for "Normally Invisible" as they seem to perform their stuff live as well....

Oh yeah, and go see the movie! (preferrably in a theatre with good sound)

I'm watching the film as I'm writing this review. At the same time I am also reading other user reviews. And I must say that I do agree with a lot that's said in the other reviews, but also disagree with some.

First, the story is quite shallow. I must say that I don't like stories that build on exceptional situations like borderline syndrome, because the effect of that is that there's no real explanation for (in this case) Reza's behaviour. She behaves in a strange way and the viewer needs to have some sort of an explanation for that, which the story doesn't give you. But at the same time, Angela Schijf is brilliant in the way she acts. You can see that she really tries to make the most out of this terrible script. Her acting is very convincing, which is a real achievement.

Eric's behaviour is strange in a way too. Eric only reacts with surprise and disgust. But he never tries to find out more about her and never tries to help her. He says "it's killing me too", but you don't see that in the story. Eric is more like a spectator. He writes about Reza, but we never get to know what he's written. And to make it even worse, he also is the narrator of the story and being the story-teller he has to pronounce some pathetic lines. The entire film consists of flash-backs while he's telling the story to (again) a new girlfriend, Silke. The new girlfriend, beautiful as she may be, is completely useless in the story. So also this actor, Anthony Kamerling, is handicapped with a very bad script. He also makes the best of it and acts very very well. But the audience will never feel compassion or even understanding for this character. He's just annoying.

Third, I want to mention Fraser, Eric's friend. He has to pronounce such terrible lines that it's astonishing that Beau van Erven Dorens succeeds in making them sound to convincing.

Some of the bad aspects of this film are so typically Dutch. In Dutch films dating from before (say) 2003, the sound is very bad. It sounds like the actors have their heads in a bucket. Sometimes you can hear the acoustic qualities of the room they're in, sometimes you don't. Sometimes a living room sounds like a bathroom, sometimes a bathroom sounds as acoustically dead as a garden. Sometimes the sound is harsh, sometimes flat, but mostly hard to hear or understand. About the visual quality: although the images are beautiful, the image quality is bad. Colours are flat or washed out, in dark scenes there's a lot of noise, it's never really crisp or sharp.

The most annoying thing in my opinion is the sex. There's so much nudity in this film, sex is so important in the story and both Angela Schijf and Anthony Kamerling have such beautiful bodies that you would expect the film to be (at least) a little bit sexy. But it isn't. None of the nude scenes have an erotic quality to them and with such beautiful people it must have been really hard to make it this un-sexy.

In short: brilliant acting in a terrible picture. A complete waste of talent.

I have a different opinion about this film. People above me say it's extremely exaggerated. I can tell you this film does not go halfway of what people with Borderline experience in their heads. Just because this already is hard to understand, because of it's outrageousness, because of the unbelievable ways a Borderline-mind works, this film does not go any deeper than this. The way a Borderliner thinks and feels is way beyond human understanding. Unless you have Borderline, or you live with somebody who has it, you will never be able to comprehend this... I have seen this film twice now, and still know for sure, that it is only half of what it should be...

this movie was so incredibly bad. i haven't read the book, but i assume it was probably very good, as giphart usually is a great writer... but this movie... there was not one single highlight. the storyline was badly laid out, none of the characters had any depth whatsoever. all reza was, was insanity and sex. she shows some emotion but there isn't any depth to the emotion...

there seems to be no connections between events, it's all so jaggedly put together. maybe some good acting could have balanced out the bad storyline, but unfortunately the actors were horrible as well. antonie kamerling's narration sounded like he was doing an imitation of bert (bert & ernie) from sesame street!! angela schijf had her alright moments, but overall she was just over-acting. which can be said also for beau whatever-his-last-name-is.

every so often the audience was confronted with 'symbolic' changes in the scenery ( ie lack of color after the relationship with reza is over, the dead guinea pig) that are so painfully obvious. this movie is trying to be artsy and intelligent when it simply isnt capable of being so.

they could have done something great with the story... too bad they f*ck*d it up so thoroughly!!

I tried to see this movie on the first night showing. The show in the city I live in was sold out. "This must be really something", I thought. I now expect that most people leaving the theater that night must have had the same though as I have now, after seeing the movie on DVD: "highly overrated; not living up to it's expectations". I didn't read the book, have to be honest about that. From what I've read, the book's author, Mr Giphart, wasn't really pleased with the movie either. Some remarks: - the plot is too clear; I knew how it would end before the movie was half on it's way - not very well acting from Ms Schijf and Mr Kamerling. The latter is also the narrator and I'm not sure whether it's intended this way, but he's reading lines and that just sounds horrible. The small part of Mr Van Erven Dorens is ok. He's not that good of an actor, but he plays an over the top student-like ("studentikoos" in Dutch) student, in which he succeeds to make him student-like...quite realistic whether you like it or not.

I wouldn't advise this movie to my friends; if it is on tv and you're sure there's nothing else on...well, it's ok to watch it, I guess. Nothing more, nothing less. A 4,5 out of 10