Twin sisters

I read the book to this film about 6 years ago, back when I was in high school and was so impressed by it that I bought the book for my bookcase three years ago or something. I haven't read the book since and I'm not some kind of purist, heck I don't even remember the specifics of the book. At best that makes me as biased as someone who didn't read the book at all...or at worst it means that I'm not a 'purist'.

Translating a book into film, the visible medium, there are so many stages at which it can go wrong. Luckily it didn't with this one. The casting is perfect. I especially liked how Lotte and Anna spoke believably broken German and Dutch. Not as it sometimes happens in American productions, when they for instance speak Dutch and say it is German. This was very well done indeed and added to the films worth. What touches me most about De Tweeling though is the fact at heart, that you get shaped partly by your environment. It is worked out very well in this film and my favorite part is that the film distances itself (as does the book) from pointing out one of the two sisters as 'the bad guy'. The film just shows the horror, the desperation and the pain on the common man from both sides; the aggressor and the wrongfully invaded. It is a truly great theme and it is one of the few films I guess in which you actually get to feel sympathy for the Germans (or at least some of them). Maybe that is understandable. Maybe it is logic that most films portray the Germans as gruesome and despicable as quite a lot of them maybe were. But every once in a while a film comes along that shows us that they are human too, that they suffered losses; that German lives lost shatter German families as they shatter American, Dutch, Polish, Jewish, English and so on. This is one of those films. It strays from the cliché, which is what I liked about it as I did like Stalingrad (1993) and Die Brücke (1959).

8 out of 10

Twin Sisters is a truly excellent film detailing how social and war experiences influence lives and drive people apart. It is a vein in Dutch film making which has already resulted in other critically acclaimed films like The Assault (1985). The central premise of separated twins growing up under different circumstances in different social circles has been explored in literature before, for example in the novel "Kronprinsarna" (1972) by Swedish author Lars Ardelius, but the novel "Twins" (1993) by Tessa de Loo has the added element of the Second World War and all the suffering that it entailed. The film follows the novel quite closely which has resulted in a richly layered drama in which nothing is as black and white as history may make us believe. The SS-officer is a reluctant soldier and a loving husband, while the culture-loving Dutchman hiding Jews in his house is a reluctant hero and a petty man. Through the eyes of the twin sisters we are able to appreciate the war experience of German and Dutch people and understand how it drove people apart and how hard it was for them to reconcile. The attempts of the German sister to reach out to her twin even at a very advanced age make for some very moving drama that will leave no one indifferent.

I read the book, De Tweeling by Tessa de Loo, and I must say that the movie most certainly lived up to the high quality of the book, in some ways even surpassed it.

The movie is about two little girls, obviously twins, who tragically get separated. One to work on a farm, the other to live with rich relatives in The Netherlands to recover from her tbc. The movie then jumps to present where to two elderly sisters meet again in a spa. However, their meeting is far from loving and it becomes clear that some scar from the past obstructs the reunion of these two sisters.

The movie then brilliantly uses flashbacks to reveal the scar that has separated the two for life, and it mostly comes down to the second world war, both living and experiences it in a different way and place.

When their parents die, both twin sisters Lotte and Anna are seperated by their family. One of them is raised by a wealthy Dutch family and the other one by a German farmer family. They are not allowed to see or even write each other. Because they live in two different worlds they become two different women. The dutch girl is going to marry a Jew, while the German one falls in love with a SS-soldier. When they finally contact each other it turns out that they have grown apart too far, and a definite break seems inevitable. Will it ever be possible to become reconciled with each other?

Twin sisters is a beautiful movie that fully deservs the oscar nomination. It's not really another WWII movie as much people think, but more a touching story behind the actual events of the war.

"De Tweeling" is more than just another WW II drama and truly adds something and is made interesting by a very good story.

The story is truly the power of this movie. It shows the perspective of WW II from the Dutch as well as the German side, which makes this movie really interesting and powerful. It shows how the twin sisters that already didn't had any contact for years are driven further out of each other because of WW II. It doesn't only show the Nazi-German military perspective of war but also that of the German civilians and in a way helps you to understand why so many Germans supported the Nazi's in WW II. It's a shame that there are still some "typical book elements" present in the movie that I sure work fine in the book but not in the movie, including the typical book ending (I say no more.).

The acting is for especially Dutch standards pretty high. Jeroen Spitzenberger acts magnificent but of course also the German actors pull of very well.

There are some excellent and impressive scene's. The movie doesn't show any gore or horror of WW II but focuses on the emotional effects of it on individuals and especially the twin sisters of course, of which one grew up in the Netherlands and the other in Germany. It doesn't only show the effects of the relationship between the two during the war but also long after it.

I even like it a bit better as "The Pianist".

9/10

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