In the films of the Dutch director Michiel ten Horn the lead character is often an anti hero. This was the case in one of his previous films "Aanmodderfakker" (2014, title is untranslatable) in the form of an eternal student and it is the case again in his new film "Fabula".
In "Fabula" lead character Jos (Fedja van Huet) is the main character in two kinds of stories (Fabula is Latin for story):
a criminal story;
a family story.
In the criminal story a drugs deal goes horibly wrong.
In the family story the origins for the bad luck of the family are attributed to an incident generations ago.
While watching the movie both storylines generated associations with other films in my mind.
With respect to the crime story these associations were:
A crime gone horribly wrong: "Fargo" (1996, Joel & Ethan Coen).
A sports bag full of money going missing: "No country for old men" (2007, Joel & Ethan Coen).
A crime story explicitely bound to a specific region in the Netherlands: "The gang of Oss" (2011, André van Duren).
With respect to the family story:
The existence of an original sin in the family: "Fiorile" (1993, Paolo & Vittorio Taviani).
Exchanging the perpetrator of a crime: "What ever happened to Baby Jan?" (1962, Robert Aldrich).
Portraying an anti social family: "Flodder" (1986, Dick Maas).
All these associations are in my opinion an indication of a lack of focus in this film. Combining the crime grenre with more mythical elements sure is courageous , but in my opinion not quite successful.
In the film Jo has a Turkish sidekick Ozgur (Sezgin Gulec), his future son-in-law. Ozgur is very proud to have invented the "baklavlaai", a combination of the Turkish pastry "baklava" and the local pastry "vlaai". In his view "baklavlaai" is the best of both worlds. I think "baklavlaai" is wasting tasty ingredients.
