Petite Soeur

Zusje is one of the most intelligent and fascinating films I have ever seen. The way the story is told, the performances, everything about this film is brilliant. The story is gruesome, tragic, and very unpredictable. It leaves you wondering right up to the final scene about what really happened between Daan and Tijn when they were children, and leaves you with an ending nobody could possibly guess. Shocking and fascinating, a film well worth seeing.

This was one of those films that happened to come on after soccer. Having no homework, watched on like I had no better alternative. But surprise, surprise! I went to sleep that night wishing I had taped the movie. Cleverly shot with solid performances from the cast. One of those films with just about everything in it. Enough to make you laugh or cry, or laugh till you cry. It grabbed my attention such that by the time I realized I still had some ice-cream left in my cup, it was already melted. Truly deserves a run at the bigger markets.

Good debut, but why has Westdijk made a mediocre TV-film, a really bad feature and another TV-film that was embarrassingly bad after this film? This film was good mainly because of the original idea, but it tells very little about the directing skills of Westdijk.

The subjective camera or found footage has been over-used in the last decade, and I was hesitating to see the movie when it started because almost all the movies I've seen in that format from before 2001, are not successful in many different genres for so many reasons: the script, the genre, making it hard to watch because the camera moves too much, etc. However I decided to give it a go and I didn't regret it. In this case they made it work. All the movie you keep on wondering what happened between the characters when they were kids to make them act like that during the movie, and in my opinion, the relationship between the two main ones (brother and sister) is very well handled, with the ups and downs of painful and beautiful memories from childhood. Sometimes you hate a character, and suddenly you jump hating the one you liked better at the beginning, which I find really hard to do and something very well accomplished. The actors (all of them) are great. The movie touches taboo themes though so if you are weak of heart perhaps this is not going to be the best choice for you. Perhaps if I would have seen it when it was first released I would have given it a 9 but of course times change and it is not as actual as I guess it once was. Still, I would recommend it if you are searching for something different.

Although already 10 years old, this movie remains one of the most inventive films ever made in the Netherlands, and launched the careers of Kim van Kooten and the director, Robert-Jan Westdijk. The captivating performance by Kim van Kooten and her talking into the camera gave me the feeling that I was intruding in something very private.Her fantastic looks in a "girl next door" kind of way, made that feeling even stronger. The supporting cast are also very true to life. I do not want to give anything away of the storyline, since the viewer really has to let himself get drawn into the story and experience the fantastic twist at the end.It is still a shame that dutch cinema is not seen on a bigger platform, due to the language barrier and that it seems that even academy award winning films like The Assault, Antonia and Character are largely unknown outside the Netherlands and the relatively small group of European film lovers in America.