Sweet Dreams

When the Dutch boss of an Indonesian sugar cane plantation suddenly dies 150 years ago, his progeny travel from Holland to take over the enterprise. Upon their arrival a secret is revealed that upends the lives of everyone who lives there. Normal rules don't apply anymore and the place descends into chaos.

Everyone has a screw loose In this darkly humorous genre twister. It is quirky, irreverent, erotic, playful, and absolutely puts no one on a pedestal. The film crew spent five months in Indonesia and recorded some amazing shots of green mountain wilderness and waterfalls. The film is witty, stylish, and imaginative. It takes advantage of the natural light and adds some intriguing artistic touches to how the film flows. I loved that the characters were complex, not black and white, and did unexpected things.

"I wanted to learn more about the dark side of Dutch colonial history," said director Ena Sendijarevic who was present at this North American premier screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. "We didn't learn this at home or in school." Sendijarevic was influenced to go to Indonesia by Henri Rousseau. "Even though he never went there m, he painted the jungle."

"You don't have to be somewhere to be from there."

In a similar manner Sweet Dreams took me into the Indonesian sugar cane fields and wilderness frontier from 150 years ago.

I looked forward to seeing this movie, but went home slightly disappointed. Sure, it's cinematographically outstanding, with beautiful images, luscious coloring and inventive camera-angles. The acting in all major parts is excellent and the music score is haunting, adding to the ominous atmosphere.

Unfortunately the project went awry with the script. There is a narrative line, but it's consequently cut into short, almost anecdotical episodes, that mostly lack a logical bridge from one to the next one. The behavior of the different characters is often unfathomable and erratic, without realistic consequences.

As said, the acting is overall excellent, with an outstanding René Soutendijk as the aristocratic and outwardly stoic mother, who in fact is terrified when she sees her existence threatened by the opportunistic schemes of her son and his wife. Florian Myjer is totally convincing as the exasperated son, and Lisa Zweerman as his dominant wife. And Hayati Azis is a revelation, playing in an understated but almost imperious way the taciturn, intelligent and calculating servant Siti.

A last minor criticism: while the score is - as already said - beautiful (mostly a bleak, unnerving string quartet), I kept wondering why there was throughout the whole movie not even one hint of the traditional Indonesian music, not even during the last dance of Siti, where it would have been so appropriate. This must have been a deliberate choice, but one that I personally find hard to understand.

Gouden Kalveren, Oscar-nomination; this movie had to be something. Apparently I'm rather spoiled, because I found the movie boring, unbelievable, shallow and shockingly badly played. Renée Zoutendijk - a renowned actress - had nothing more to offer than a pastiche of a mental patient, while her 'son' did the same as a spoiled brat with a chip on his shoulder. And I could go on and on. Interaction between the characters was sometimes infantile. And the camerawork? Indonesia is an incredible beautiful country and even the opportunity of surprising us with a mesmerizing landscape was halfhearted to say the least. The only suspense was when the overly pregnant woman finally woud give birth. It starting promising, but it ended with very heavy eyelids.

Phenomenal actors, amazing cinematography and visuals, and a gripping atmosphere that unfortunately has absolutely no payoff.

This movie has so many red herrings, with characterizations and conflicts being proposed, and spine tingling anticipation which goes NOWHERE. Unfortunately the ending (and third act in general) did not even try to deliver anything close to coherent.

I do not know the point of this movie, there is no message with themes that were tossed away. They buildup many things, but the script seems to have lost it. Decisions the characters made were without consequence, and unfortunately it was just boring near the end.

The most infuriating part of this movie is that the first half is very engaging. But it is engaging because of the questions and suspense the film builds. But if the questions are abandoned, with many many chekhof's guns that were melted away, and suspense that washes away like a cold splash in the face.

Disappointed.

The white man is hell-bent on destroying and swallowing everything in his path. But it's so much more than that. This is towards the end of the white man's dominion in these parts. At least it feels like it, we know now, a century later that it didn't end there, and it probably never will.

A much tamer Triangle of Sadness. Especially the last part. There's some of that here, albeit a more quiet, subdued subversion of the "social order". Not complete, not even close.

It starts with the white being completely out of touch with the reality around them, but very much demanding complete docility. Agathe doesn't understand the telephone. But she is perhaps the least upsetting of the white characters somehow. She clings to the female attributes of the European upper class of the time, but is very much entrenched in this foreign culture. She accepts it and her place here in this social circle, bastard and all and is unwilling to leave it. So much so that she will do anything not to be taken away, not even from the factory where she claims she has no place as a woman. She is the most interesting character for me, together with Siti and maybe Karel.

The old man is done away with quickly. He is as loathsome as they can make a male colonizer and patriarch. Most tropes apply.

Siti sits between these two cultures and does a delicate balancing act between her abusive master, her stiff mistress who has mastered the art of sitting quietly in a room, doing nothing, her persistent suitor who rebels against the conquerors and dreams of a simple, but free life, her new masters who have their own ideas for the place and break down when confronted with reality, and her own son, Karel, for whose benefit she probably makes every decision, and who is also trapped on the border between the two warring cultures, never fully belonging to any of them. He is rejected, jeered at or kept at a distance by the locals and hated by his step-brother and his wife for who he is. I think Agathe is the only one who just accepts him for who he is and maybe lets him be. Karel himself has difficulty relating to the others, being encouraged by his father to act as a master with the locals. On the other hand he is despised by his white blood relatives.

There's a sizeable dose of dark humour and irony to the events, culminating in a monumental decision by Siti and a surreal, quite beautiful scene at the end.