Une noble intention

Very irritating: the diction of the actors, especially their accents, which is typical of people working for national radio and TV in the Netherlands. "Bekakt Goois". In Hoogeveen.

Visually stunning but with a story that presents a dreary view of late 19th century Amsterdam. A pharmacist and his cousin concoct a plan to emigrate poor peat workers to America when an investor decides to build a luxury hotel and buy up downtown properties. They see an opportunity to pocket some money and offer the peasants a new start in the land of the free. Things don't go well in negotiations lending to some tragic results. Slower paced but excellent performances keep A Noble Intention interesting if flawed.

Great movie!! My favorite part is when, at a funeral, you see a graveyard worker pulling a blanket from a caskit. Why i like this part so much you ask? Well maybe the fact that the person acting as graveyard worker is ME. But it's not a bad movie in general but not for brood audience cause it's a historical drama.

Three story lines, maybe effective in the book but not in this movie. The most interesting part, only 30 minutes, is the struggle between the protagonist trying to sell his shop and the investor who doesn't want to pay what the shop owner is asking. The rest seems only padding to fill it up to feature length. To bad, because the eye candy is satisfying, i.e. the image of old Amsterdam.

Based on a fictional Dutch book speculating on how the two 19th century homes that the Victoria Hotel was built around came to be. Amsterdam's Central Station is directly across the street from the Victoria Hotel, which was built in the late 1880's. If you look closely at the hotel you will notice that there are two single dwellings that the hotel was built around. This is the story of how that came to be and it involves three cousins and the attempt to help some poor peat farmers achieve a better life in America.

This is a very sad but well meaning drama. The letter from the peat farmers really saved this from being a total tragedy. I loved the images of the hotel then and the hotel now.

It is the precursor to my city's Up house (which sadly I witnessed the monstrous fitness center, etc being built around a poor old lady's home here in Seattle ), with the exception that in the modern build they made no attempt to make the building beautiful and the owner wasn't holding out for more money...she just wanted to live in peace in her home.