Character (1997)

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.

Fmovies: In the 20's, in Netherlands, Jacob Willem Katadreuffe (Fedja van Huêt) has just concluded the law school and has an argument with the High Court Enforcement Officer Dreverhaven (Jan Decleir) at his office. Katadreuffe leaves the place covered in blood. On the next morning, he is arrested by the police for the murder of Dreverhaven. He claims that he is innocent and discloses the story of his life to the Chief of Police.

His mother Joba (Betty Schuurman) was the maid at Dreverhaven. One night, she is raped by him and a couple of weeks later she learns that she is pregnant. Dreverhaven proposes to marry her but Joba quits her job and leaves his house. Along the years, Katadreuffe is bullied at school and called bastard by his mates and his mother never talks to him. One day, he is involved by other kids in a theft of bread and arrested by the police. When he calls his biological father to help him, Dreverhaven tells the police that he does not know who Katadreuffe is. The boy is intelligent and learns English reading a superseded and incomplete edition of encyclopedia that was left behind by the previous tenants of his apartment. Katadreuffe is also ambitious and asks for a job in a law office, where he becomes the protégé of his mentor De Gankelaar (Victor Löw). Soon he falls in unrequited love with the secretary Lorna Te George Victor (Tamar van den Dop). Along the years, Dreverhaven uses his power to harm him. When he concluded his course, he decides to pay a visit to Dreverhaven to tell him that he has wined their dispute. May Katadreuffe have killed Dreverhaven?

"Karakter" is a dark film about a young man needy of fatherly love. The intercourse between his parents is never clear whether it was a rape, as per the trailer, or consensual sex. In the view of Katadreuffe, his mother has always been "mute". But maybe it could be a trauma for her only intercourse since she is a stubborn woman. Dreverhaven is a mysterious and ambiguous character. Is he only cruel or is he trying to harden his son to face the challenges of the brutal society where they live and be a winner? The screenplay is very well-written and keeps the attention of the viewer until the last scene. The cinematography, set decoration and art direction are perfect and bring the viewer to Netherlands in the middle 20's. The cast has magnificent performance highlighting Jan Decleir. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Caráter" ("Character")

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.

Character fmovies. It's no wonder that this Dutch drama got the 1997 Academy Award for the best foreign country movie in the year of "Titanic". It tells the rise-and-fall-story of a young man in the Netherlands of the 1920's who's working hard to escape from the ghetto and to become an idealistic lawyer. Unfortunately his brutal an tyrannic father fights against him in any possible way, and at the end father and son are facing in a hard fight for life and death.

The story is great, the characters (sic!) of the plot even more, and the acting is pure adrenaline-driven. The whole atmosphere, supported by the dark filming locations of Amsterdam, Belgium, Germany (the Speicherstadt in Hamburg) and Poland, is disturbing and depressing. A great psycho drama and insight into the human psyche with a powerful performance by Jan Decleir as villain Dreverhaven that can easily compete with Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter movies!

Character is what it's about, all right. That commodity which will be obsolete in the coming century/millenium. The mood and acting are as near to perfect as can be conceived. There were scenes that evoked the best of Murnau, Pabst and Lang. Movies like this don't come around much any more.

This is a movie that grips right away. While it has a dark setting, sparse but classic, the characters are rich. The love and care that Mike van Diem and the actors put in this film is visible. Thanks to significant contributions from both Dutch and Belgian TV stations, this movie is a rare treat, which is for once not spoiled by overly commercial requirements from demanding advertisers... As i understand, the film company First Floor Features had this film for decade(s?) in the planning, and it is a happy coincidence that it was realized the way you can enjoy it now. It has thus become a monument honoring the fabulous writer F. Bordewijk, the Dutch life and mind of the beginning 1900's, the craftsmanship of a dedicated cast, and a generous producer.

Jan Declair as the stony-hearted usher Dreverhaven is a character you won't forget for a long time. His softer side is time and again rejected by taciturn Joba, his former housekeeper who became pregnant in one lonely weak moment of them both. For several years, he offers her to marry her, or at least to contribute for the upbringing of his illegitimate son Kattedreuffe. She as many times rejects: 'We do not need anything.' On a precarious occasion, Dreverhaven denounces Jacob Kattadreuffe nevertheless, and from that moment on, father and son have a harsh relation as well. -

Masterfully, fate intertwines their lives, as the story unfolds. Real gems are present everywhere, the scenery is breathtakingly picturesque, partly filmed in Rotterdam harbor, and in other places like Poland. The movie constantly plays with time, but in a plausible way. As an example, when Kattedreuffe has an appointment at a bailiff's office after being framed into bankruptcy, the name plate blinks at once with his own name on it. And indeed, he starts a career in this very office that same day.

For a while, the lives of father and son seem only occasionally to coincide, but it is a silence before the storm. Every picture draws to the dramatic end which was glimpsed as the opening scene: Did Kattadreuffe murder Dreverhaven? Many instances shown would allow this conclusion, as the two fatally attract each other to fulfill their inner tragedy. Dreverhaven as this hard and desperate 'keeper of the law' who can not express love, and Kattadreuffe as the one who had to fight his whole life to arrive in a higher position, and then stands empty-handed, his love unreturned through his own stupidity (even his mother sees that Lorna Te George / Tamar van den Dop was an exquisite relation missed).

To kill (!) each other would suddenly seem like the best possibility and a liberation in such a dark hour, but the end has a surprise. The last minute smooths all the giant waves, and allows for a satisfying and ingenuous end scene. - Maybe you have to see this movie more than once to uncover the many hidden treasures, i strongly recommend to get it for yourself on DVD. The music of 'Paleis van Boem' enhances perfectly the impressive scenery. It is an artwork that has more than earned the Oscar it has got as best foreign film in 1998, along with several other awards.

And i am proud to have been asked to participate with calligraphy and handwritten material, although it is only clearly visible in the last half minute when (my) hand writes the last words of the testament, undersigning with - (see for yourself!).