Leef!

Leef! Is about Anna (Monic Hendrickx), an obstetrician and her family. Her real dream is to be a writer, but because of her mother she never had the self-confidence to become one. They have a problem as a family, in fact they have everything but they don't manage to feel happy. One of her daughters is a problem child and the other one has a weak heart and her husband Paul (Peter Blok) is cheating on her.

The premiere of Leef! was a real strange one, that was because of the director Willem van de Sande Bakhuyzen died just two days before the premiere. I had a real double feeling about it because I'm a big fan of him so it was difficult the give an objective judge about the movie right away. Now it's a while ago and I think I can do it.

Leef! is a great movie. First of all the acting in this movie is fantastic. Monic Hendrickx and Peter Blok are good as always, but also Sophie van Winden was great, it's one of her first movies, she did a great job. The camera is moving constantly, which creates entity in the movie. The music also creates the right feeling. The last days I heard a few times that people link this movie with movies like Magnolia and Short cuts. I don't think that's right. Leef! is good enough to judge it on itself. What is also said a lot is the the movie is (too) complex, indeed you have to think and pay attention to get everything, but since when is that not a good point. I like it to watch a movie actively. Of course there are also a few minuses, at the end there are too much improbabilities and cliché's to add everything together. So at the end it is too much of a feel good movie. But don't get me wrong, Leef! is a fantastic movie that shows real problems and that is harrowing to see. Leef! is about people, it's a movie with a heart and it is really a must to see.

I'm looking forward to see the last movie of Willem van de Sande Bakhuyzen, Ik omhels je met 1000 armen, which you can see in 2006.

This film is a delicate and thoughtful celebration of life, not only because of the beautiful rendering of family-life in its highs and lows but also because of the uplifting message director Van De Sande Bakhuysen leaves with his audience. For somebody who had to live with the knowing that he would die of cancer, the director urges the audience to stop looking for guilt or even forced happiness and start life from this moment on. The film itself may be masked propaganda for conformity and bourgeoisie, but delivers a satisfying and tear jerking portrait of love lost and refound but most importantly about the responsibility we all have not only to make ourselves happy but also the people around us, who rely on us for their joy in life.

I was studying at the University of Amsterdam last year when I would pass the movie theater in Haarlemstrat(sp) and see the announcement for the film. I wanted so much to see the film especially because of Monic Hendrickx, but the film was not subtitled yet for English. Recently I found it on Amazon. It had English subtitles and it was in PAL, but since I own several PAL movies, I now own a portable DVD player that plays all regions. Alas, after a long wait, I was not disappointed. It is a celebration of life and I felt inspired by it. I hope this film is more widely recognized because it was perfect in every way. A few years back Zeus and Zo, another Dutch film, was nominated for the Academy Awards. I have nothing against Z&Z, but Leef should not be overlooked.

... in Dutch film that this film did not win any more prizes. For starter, the acting is really great, especially Peter Blok, Al. And Sterre Herstel gives us the full range of her not inconsiderable, 10 year old talent. This film is multi-layered and isn't ashamed to explore that. The director isn't afraid to be accused of pretentiousness. And rather than use the meandering story lines of past and present throughout the film, he sensed correctly that that would be a gimmick. So after half an hour the story is more linear, more present-time oriented. The whole mother-is-both-instrument-of-death-as-well-as-life might seem a feel good solution geared towards an happy end, but one can see it simply as poetic justice. Or butterfly wings. Or an underlining of the statement that we should live life to the fullest, because we control so very little in our life. Of course there's life's little irony that the director of Live! died two days before the premiere, but in the end what does that matter to the film? Nothing.

I expected a lot from this director and the screenwriter, their previous cooperation on 'Cloaca' led to a masterpiece. This film however is a big disaster. It contains too many dramatic events spread over too many characters. Everybody in this film is totally wasted, the dialog is purely psychological jadajada and serves no function in telling a story that connects the different characters in a plot. As a viewer it is impossible to connect to one of the characters for longer than 2 minutes, their problems are merely unbelievable entertainment that just goes in with your popcorn but does not have any meaning. What also puzzles me is why they did not work with the same Director of Photography as in Cloaca, as it looked fantastic. Leef! however has a bleached out look, Using very hard light on the faces of the characters, I guess the idea was to enlarge their mental status by making them look more tormented, not very interesting to look at though.