Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

Micitype Pretty Good

Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

John Johnson The film starts on the waterways of the Netherlands. Jacob Katadreuffe is a young man born to a single mother. His mother had a brief stay as a housekeeper at the home of a disreputable local official. She became pregnant with his child and left him, whether rape or not is unclear. She raises her child, Jacob, alone. He has a hard time growing up as a bastard child, even being swindled at one point when trying to buy a cigar shop. This endeavor gets him into serious debt, that and his attempts to get himself a law degree, bring him into contact with his estranged father, Dreverhaven. Despite his father's conniving attempts to prevent the young Jacob from doing well, Jacob is able to get his degree. His success and previous altercations lead him into physical conflict with Dreverhaven. He's under suspicion for the murder of Dreverhaven, but it's never clear if he actually did it to me. In any event he's found not guilty and ultimately inherits his father's fortune.It's amazing to get a fresh view of Europe. So much of modern cinema focuses on WW2 or the Cold War, that we're led to forget that there are other stories to tell. I like this take on capitalism and ethics without going so far as to bring in the Soviet influence. There was a lot of controversy all through Europe at the time that focused as much on urban life as ideology.The interaction of the youth in school is also very good. The clothing, the muddy streets, and the fighting amongst the kids paints a vivid, if not realistic image, of life at the time. I particularly liked the school yard fight.I wasn't crazy about the narrative; it seemed like his interrogator would have had less patience otherwise it would be 10/10.I'd recommend this to anyone, but especially if you liked "Angela's Ashes".

MusicalAnime I really liked this movie a lot. Sometimes i'll come back and refer to this movie when talking to well mostly my father. There was something about this movie that captivates you from the start. Your thrown in halfway in the movie without Much of knowing what's going on. The story slows down and you get to see struggles with a father and son story. This movie has a wonderful script, and very good lines. It is a very smart film that i think is just really good. It gives you a sense of how things were there, and how you can love someone and hate them at the same time. Or how you can love someone but never tell them of that love and yet they know. It's sad letting go and when bad things happen to you, you eventually are left to face the love in a form of anguish and hate.

eyeseehot Watching this sludgy, portentous tripe was torture. Any relation between these characters and real human beings is purely coincidental. Example: the main character is supposedly in love with a woman who works in the office, though he's been too shy to do anything about it. At the beach with friends, he meets her by chance. She invites him to her cabana, where, shockingly, there's another man, never seen before. She introduces them. Lover boy is so angry he leaves, and then won't speak to her at the office. He never asks about the other man, she never tells him anything, and the other man is never seen again. Later she marries someone else. His mother says, "you let her get away, you're an ass." Best line in the film.The film at least sparked a good discussion afterwards. We came to see that it's a pro-capitalist, or anti-welfare state, allegory. Both the father and the mother, in their ways, torment the son, and in the end we learn it was all done out of love, tough love: to make him tough. Only then can he inherit the money. The father is a monstrously unbending bailiff, charged with defending property rights by repossession and eviction of those deadbeat lower classes. The kid shows grit and ambition by pursuing legal studies and paying off all his debts. One slight softening: he learns, one time, to accept a gift. Otherwise it's straight Ayn Rand: capitalism is tough to keep society tough. Rely on yourself, don't get soft, climb the ladder and pay your debts, and you'll reap your reward.The style is copied from Steven Spielberg. Same kinds of shots, rhythm, shoving the obvious in your face, lack of interest in real character. Standard Hollywood period piece photography: subdued hazy brown-gray-blue. Excuse me, I have to run to the video store to rent an Eric Rohmer.

Keith F. Hatcher It is not too frequent that we get Dutch programmes of films or TV-minis in this corner of Europe, and when they do appear it is thanks to the regional Basque TV Station `EITB'. Indeed over two years has passed since seeing the excellent mini `Charlotte Sophie Bentinck' (1996) (qv) and seeing the very interesting `Karakter' recently. Set in the 1920's this film has excellent mise-en-scéne wonderfully photographed, mostly in Holland and Belgium, but with some scenes shot in Wroclaw, Poland, with street-cars of the times, in which the darkened almost greyish brickwork of the tenement buildings and the industrial port areas takes on an intense protagonism in the film's development. Palais van Boem's musical contribution is mostly just right, though at times seemed to be a little boorish.A young, illegitimate boy grows up with his unmarried mother, whilst the father, Dreverhaven, continuously appeals to her to marry him, but always rejected. However, the father seems to do everything possible to disrupt the young man's life, as his mother becomes more and more detached and uncaring. It would seem that Dreverhaven is playing out a real-life game of chess around his son Jacob, as if trying to corner him into submission and apathy, but which the young man manages to survive. The psychological impression is that one or the other would undo his `bitter foe', but that despite the father's vast fortune and power the struggle of will would rebound against him.But as the Dutch saying goes: ‘De één zijn dood, is de ander zijn brood'This is no `thriller' in the ordinary sense, more a psychological suspense which requires attention throughout. The acting is magnificent: both Fedja van Huêt and Jan Decleir play out their parts with just the right touch, especially Decleir, and Lou Landré as Rentenstein is almost spellbinding, not to be missed.Here is another example of the unarguable fact: here in Europe we make cinema, not blockbuster box-office hits.