Europe Endless - The Netherlands: Character (Dir Mike van Diem, 2h4m, 1997)

 

Another stop now on a lesser explored cinematic nation; the Dutch have an admittedly impressive three Best Foreign Language Film Oscars under their belt (The Assault (1986) Antonia's Line (1995) and the focus of today's column, 1997's Character (Karakter), but the Netherlands is not generally known, unlike its immediate neighbours, as a cinematic nation. The most famous Dutch filmmaker, Paul Verhoeven, is as notable for his groundbreaking, and often sexually explicit and violent oeuvre in 80s and 90s Hollywood, as his works in his native Netherlands, including the (then) colossally budgeted Soldier of Orange (1977) and the erotic thriller The Fourth Man (1983). Like many nations, the Netherlands is not a single director. We must look beyond Verhoeven, as he looked beyond the Netherlands to work in cinema.

Character is the most typical reflection of a nation's national character in film we have discussed so far. An adaption of a well-loved 1938 novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk, made in a prestigious-feeling style with popular Dutch actors; in the background occurs a lot of suitable period detail, from communist meetings broken up by the Rotterdam police to battles at the barricade, all of which is shot very nicely by cinematographer Rogier Stoffers, in a painterly style - predominately black and white. For my Dutch readers, I'm sure this all means a great deal - to them I say Dag, hoe gaat het? - and am sure this adds to its central conflict. For at the centre of Character is a struggle between father and son that certainly does go beyond the borders of the Netherlands, and one that drives their relationship from the son's birth, trading blows all the way to a final confrontation.

Beginning with that climatic showdown, so we are introduced to the father, stony and often cruel bailiff, A.B. Dreverhaven (veteran actor Jan Decleir), and his illegitimate son, Jacob Willem Katadreuffe (Fedja van Huêt), who has overcome the troubles of his background, to become a lawyer. It is as sudden and tempestuous as it is suddenly over, Katadreuffe stabbing a knife that will proceed to become important over the rest of the film's story into his father's office desk, and immediately leaving only to be soon arrested after his father's mysterious death. What follows is a story largely told in flashback to his arresting officers by the young Katadreuffe, beginning with his father's relationship with his mother, the bailiff’s maid, Joba (another Dutch film veteran Betty Schuurman), who promptly rejects the man's advances and attempts to marry her, repeatedly sending back a dowry whilst Kartadreuffe is an infant.

So we are taken through Jacob's life; the mood certainly feels Dickensian, and the narrative progression through the life and times of one man in Rotterdam, much of which is run down or, partly because the film was largely shot in Warsaw, barely seems to have changed since the 19th Century, whilst Stoffers' cinematography, dominated by these buildings that tower into shot, feels like early German Expressionism has travelled a few hundred miles west across the Dutch border. So from boy picked upon because he is illegitimate , to the quiet self-improver, who pores over an incomplete English encyclopedia, to a failed business, inevitably felled by the shadowy presence of Dreverhaven, and on to his career in the law, a career into which the Bailiff increasingly intrudes.

At base, Character is driven by these moments of conflict between father and son, from refusing to acknowledge him as a young wayward youth after he is arrested, to Dreverhaven's multiple attempts to bankrupt his son, one of which seems simply to flex power in a court case because he can. As he snaps at one point, he is ostensibly doing this for his son's self improvement, declaiming "I'll strangle him for nine-tenths, and the last tenth will make him strong". Van Diem's script, co-written with Laurens Geels and Ruud van Megen, is certainly in no illusion that the father is a monster; he is after all introduced serving notice to a house including a woman seemingly on her deathbed, who he drags out and throws from her bed in a moment that feels almost like a parody of Dickensian violence. Yet there is depth to Dreverhaven, and to Decleir's performance, a bizarre scene later showing him naked before a mob that soon attacks him, whilst his steeliness sees him face down an armed gunman across the barricades.

This adversarial relationship, however, is not purely the father's making: several times we see Joba instruct her son, and Katadreuffe later repeat "We don't need him", pushing Dreverhaven away even when the older man attempts to be reconciliatory. Character is as much a film about how obsession takes hold, as we see the young man brought back again, and again into the orbit of his father, either deliberately dragged into these confrontations, or deliberately seeking him out, including taking a second loan out from the banks he knows his father runs. More than this,  Katadreuffe is driven by the idea of revenge on his father, blinding him to those who attempt to support him, from his friend in the legal firm (Victor Löw), to Lorna Te (Tamar van den Dop), who clearly has feelings for him, only for Jacob to be too myopic, too focused on his revenge, to realise she loves him, still trying - and failing - to his final confrontation with his father to connect with him. 

Character certainly has its plaudits, but also highlights the qualities of these smaller nations in cinema; it it is not just a film focused on the struggle between generations, nor merely a smartly made period thriller, but a glimpse into a lesser known corner of cinema, dominated by its two colossal, and perfectly opposed, performances. 

Rating: Highly Recommended

Unfortunately, Character is not available on DVD and is not available to stream in the UK.

Next week, we join The Kid with a Bike and the Dardenne brothers in our next stop, Belgium