dutch – PopCult Reviews

The Vanishing (1988)
Written by George Sluizer & Tim Krabbé
Directed by George Sluizer

Each life hurtles through time & space on a course that the person who bears it can never truly predict. These lives cross with each other, but more often than not, they make no impact, brief encounters that dissolve. We can feel trapped in these lives, a passenger unable to exert their own will on the trajectory. Look at how so many people will simply follow the path of a parent or choose an identity based on how they will be perceived by the society around them. Even many “expressing individuality” are working from blueprints created by others, a manufactured uniqueness. But then some collide with your life, upending the sedate normality. What if our intersection with them is another moment we cannot escape, pulled into the event horizon of chaos? What is it to see something evil coming over the horizon and be unable to fight against its pull?

The 4th Man (1983)
Written by Gerard Soeteman
Directed by Paul Verhoeven

In 1981, the Dutch author Gerard Reve was asked to supply the free book given away during an annual promotion of literacy in The Netherlands. If you bought any Dutch-language book that week, you would get a copy of Reve’s for free. Reve wrote De Vierde Man, a noirish psychological thriller. As a gay man and a Catholic, those themes would often get brought up in his books, this one was a little different as the lead character was bisexual, and the book contained only a brief scene of gay sex. It was apparently too controversial, and the book was dropped in favor of something far more bland & boring. That book has been mostly forgotten, while De Vierde Man was adapted by Paul Verhoeven. The 4th Man would be that director’s final Dutch production until he returned in 2006; in the meantime, he made some of the most memorable 1980s action/farcical films.

Category: dutch

Movie Review – The Vanishing

Movie Review – The 4th Man