De minder gelukkige terugkeer van Joszef Katus naar het land van Rembrandt (1966) User Reviews

A versatile nouvelle vague film about the late Dutch sixties

[eabakkum · 7/10 · 14 February 2011]

De minder gelukkige terugkeer van Joszef Katus naar het land van Rembrandt, the film with the longest name, is the first and very low-budget produce of the couple De La Parra and Verstappen and their film company Scorpio. It is said that the couple was inspired by the nouvelle vague, in particular Godart. The film concept is remarkable, construed as a mix of documentary, politics, suspense, crime and passion. Actually social realism is my thing, but this film is sufficiently versatile to catch my attention. Typical style elements are the moving camera, less than perfect illumination, an invisible story teller, and occasional diversions from the film. The latter element takes the form of sudden camera switches away from the main character Joszef to an occasional passer-by, as if the camera man is searching for a better story. Or a film character, who complains that his role is devoid of text. The narrative is located in Amsterdam in the year 1966, the roaring sixties, and awakens memories of the American film Strawberry Statement. A recurring theme is the Dutch Provo movement, consisting of students and an occasional anarchist intellectual, who in a playful manner rebel against the system. For me these scenes are the high points of the film. It portrays the times of the so-called Dam sleepers and the call for the Dutch Republic. The Provos tried to provoke the police into using violence, hoping that the coppers would eventually get tired of it (which by the way is psychological nonsense, since war experience shows that violence leads to the moral degeneration of (most) men). Joszef is a border line case, who deals in heroin and pays his girl friend with bad cheques. Sometimes he joins the Provo happenings, not because he feels ideologically connected, but because he wants to protest against alienation. Probably there are some existential influences, considering that at that time the philosophy of Sartre was popular among rebellious students. When a reporter asks Joszef: "What are you searching?", he replies: "Myself". There are also hints about Bolshevist Europe, and Joszef himself is supposed to be of Hungarian origin. The suspense is brought into the film by a man in a raincoat, who keeps on following Joszef. It might be a secret agent, a police officer, or a revenue official, so he definitely personates state repression. The anarcho-communist movement was rightly somewhat paranoid (just like Moslems in our times), but in the film this actual role is never resolved. For unexplained reasons Joszef returns on a daily basis to his suitcase in a locker at the railway station. In the final scene Joszef dies due to an untreated stomach disease. The documentary part of the film mainly stems from the covered time interval: April 30 to May 5. In the Netherlands this is a week of traditional festivities, and the film shows the Amsterdam people having fun. April 30 is the anniversary of the Queen, May 1 is Labour Day, and May 5 is the Capitulation of the Hitler regime occupation in 1945. The episode clearly represents the contrast between order and liberation. However, the film fails to elaborate on this antithesis or to provide alternatives and solutions, and remains stuck in existential alienation. I like it mainly because of its historic value, the intellectual effort and my personal melancholy. Some later films of De La Parra and Verstappen (especially Blue Movie) contained pornographic elements, and caused the abolition of Dutch film censorship. If you like social films, consider seeing my other reviews.

The First and best Dutch Nouvelle Vaque movie ever made.

[blankpaul · 10/10 · 28 January 2000]

This movie, with his incredible long title, is one of the first movies made by the duo Wim and Pim. Later they made Bleu movie which is still one of the biggest box-office hits ever made in the Netherlands. The movie is about a guy in Amsterdam during the roaring sixties who has just returned from Paris. There are several demonstration going one and he just goes alone with it but he doesn't know what he is against. Especially that aspect of the movie is intriguing because we now know that most of the ideals of the sixties are gone and not believed in by the same people who screamed and yelled for peace love and understanding in that time.