The six-minute film The Misadventures of a French Gentleman Without Pants on Zandvoort Beach (1905) is considered the oldest surviving film in the country of the Netherlands.
Since then, in fact, the contribution to the cinema of the former great country, which gave the world capitalism, colonialism, paints for painting and a good part of painting itself, has not been observed.
Russian critics can still name Paul Verhoeven, Jeroen Krabbe, Rutger Hauer, Famke Janssen in a funny American way, but they won't get to Menno Meyes.
And all because such people did not exist in Dutch cinema for a long time - they are all in America.
About the only Oscar-winner, the post-war Fons Rademakers, or Joris Ivens with the "palm branch" now no one will remember.
Well, Mike van Diem, of course.
Everything is very simple: the country of the Netherlands is not poor in talent, just a microscopic market for local cinema. And when loud thoughts are wandering in the heads of domestic filmmakers, how great it would be if Russia was divided into many wonderful countries like Holland (some have Switzerland as an example, but no one talks about Albania), they are not able to understand that cinema then yours is definitely a khan. But while you live on state money, you can even dream, isn't it? You can still dream about Hollywood, where you will be taken by a blue helicopter, but are there many of you like that in Hollywood? Zero without a stick.
By the way, the example of Verhoeven with Hauer also helped few people in Holland - a whole generation of the 1980s and 2000s returned from America in batches, because they could not get through.
Who in America needs an actor named Anthony Willem Constantin Gneomar (Anthony) Kamerling?
That's just it.
But today all filmmaking in the Netherlands is carried out with the help of the state film fund, which allows you to somehow be present on your own screens, where now about a year there are 30 local films, European - 70, and American - 115. One hundred and fifteen.
So we will write it down.
At the same time, “ours” consistently fail at the box office.
And this is a tendency for decades.
Local directors are in many ways immigrants (and left back) from the theatrical environment.
There are a large number of state theaters and small theater groups - in them both directors and actors of the country have more stable jobs.
This cannot but leave an imprint on the character of the cinema.
As for me, it's for the better.
An excellent example of such a native is Alex van Warmerdam, the second Dutch filmmaker to be nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Festival de Cannes (2013) in the history of local cinema.
The first theatrical project of Alex and his friends was called Hauser Orkater and has been in operation since 1974.
There, a lot of attention was paid to music - the songs were written by Alex (text), and the music by his brother Vincent van Warmerdam.
They even released albums themselves (Op Avontuur, 1974), which they sold exclusively on tour of the theater.
Another brother played in the line-up - Mark van Warmerdam.
Why am I suddenly listing all the Rabbit's relatives, as A. Milne said?
Because when you watch his films, the first thing that will surprise you is the amount of Van Warmerdam in the credits.
The surprisingly close family circle involved in the creative process and filmmaking for this director is a natural chip.
And surprisingly, it bears fruit.
And even reflected in the aesthetics of his paintings.
By the way, in 2005, the major label EMI released the disc Hauser Orkater - Zie De Mannen Vallen. Their performances were somewhat similar to what our "Avia" did ... Naturally, at the expense of Anton Adasinsky's theater. But in 1980, Alex already organized his own (with his brother Mark) theater troupe De Mexicaanse Hond ("Mexican Dog" - apparently a tribute to "Andalusian Dog"), and this is still quite active theater. Somehow, quite by accident, I watched their play Wees ons Genadig, written by Alex in 2007, but I didn’t even think that Warmerdam was a famous Dutch filmmaker. Not to know is not shameful, it is shameful not to want to know.
Actually, in between films - and they are really big for him - he is engaged in theater and thus feeds his actors, who are filmed for him in almost all films, similar to Aki Kaurismaki.
Only Aki enters actors into the work of his gastronomic enterprises, and Alex - into the theater.
At first, Warmerdam shot short films, and this is understandable: short films and documentaries in Holland are a more practical option.
Having starred as an actor in Adelbert (1977), he came to believe in the power of cinema and already in 1978 wrote the script for Entrée Brussels, based on the performances of the Hauser Orkater theater.
Then - local television.
And in 1986 - the first full-length film "Abel" (Abel).
In my opinion, Warmerdam anticipated everything that will happen in a two-year lockdown with European youth.
Action time - conditional 50s.
Place - conditional Netherlands.
The main character, whom he plays himself, does not leave the house, does not communicate with anyone, lives in some kind of vacuum with endless control from his parents, although he is already 31 years old. That's all there is in this film - the atmosphere of some kind of puppet existence, it will remain characteristic of all his films. Plus a little Freudianism. (One scene where his mother licks his face like a dog, which is worth it.) Of course, brother Vincent wrote the music for him. The striptease girl is played by Annette Malherbe, the wife of Warmerdam, who will later appear in almost all of his films.
In the very first picture, he stated another personal principle, which he also has in common with Kaurismäki - this is a constant balance between the terrible and the comical. The viewer rides the whole picture on these roller coasters. At the same time, he has no trace of any deliberate "jokes" and other comics. He just tells stories. “Sometimes I don’t understand why the people in the audience are laughing,” says the director himself. The premiere screening was attended by over 300 thousand viewers, and the money for the production was provided by the public broadcaster VPRO - the former Liberal Protestant Radio.
His second film "The Northerners" (De Noorderlingen, 1992) can easily be called art house (the most meaningless term so widespread in the Russian Federation - in Germany, for example, "national cinema" is used instead). And you can call it a symbol of Dutch life. Anything. In fact, in 1990 it was a performance by the Warmerdam Theater. It looks like a performance and is built in exactly the same way. And the scenery - a town of several houses and one street in the dunes at the edge of the forest - is exactly theatrical. There are all types, heroes, a choir (usually these are silent aunts, staring into other people's windows in a crowd). A symbolic forest where half of the local tragedies take place. A sex-distracted butcher. The negro who escaped from the human zoo.
Depressed wife, officially a saint.
A boy with a blackface, thinking only about how Lumumba is doing in Africa now.
And, despite the number of corpses, it's funny again.
And very picturesque.
The film was produced by Dick Mas, a director who previously directed the video for the local band Golden Earring and then won an Oscar for Character in 1998.
It’s surprising that on such material some Russian director with state money would have filmed git, from which even flies on the ceiling would hang themselves.
And Warmerdam has some kind of peace and inner light.
Although, maybe someone just forgot to turn off the light bulb.
They tried to push the film to the Oscar, but it was stabbed to death at the stage of the national nomination.
And then the director Theo van Gogh, who starred in this film, was stabbed to death.
His next picture came out only in 1996 - "Dress" (De Jurk).
And it shows how surprisingly subtly Alex composes all the details of his narratives.
In fact, this is the story of a dress from a cotton box to complete destruction, and it, this dress, passes through the fates of completely different people.
The reception is simple, but very fresh.
At the same time, Warmerdam argues that, sitting down to the script, he has no idea where the narration will drive, and about this he has another funny film - "The Waiter" (2006).
But graduates of weekly courses for screenwriters on the Internet with all these "arcs" will hardly understand this.
All the director's pictures are timeless.
He manages to make sure that any of his films does not look like they were shot decades ago.
Moreover, cinema is one of the most perishable foods.
"Little Tony" (Kleine Teun, 1998) was shown in Cannes in the "Uncommon View" section.
But this is again a life story and, of course, completely taken to the extreme.
And again the audience laughs.
Well, because the director has some kind of inner powerful vitality that simply does not allow the viewer to fall into despondency.
"New Tales of the Brothers Grimm" (Grimm, 2003) is a kind of road movie interspersed with quite modern urban legends.
And it all starts like the real brothers Grimm: the father abandons the children in the forest because he cannot feed them.
And then - a trip to Spain and terrible adventures along the way.
In my opinion, not Alex's best film, but for the pictures of the forest in the traditions of Dutch painting, he can be forgiven for everything.
The Waiter (Ober, 2006) is a great account of the nature of writing, but without the Woody Allen whining.
Moreover, this is pure phantasmagoria - when the heroes of the narrative begin to interfere with the narrative.
Naturally, the director himself plays the main role.
Regarding what he himself plays in his films, he usually answers like this: "I could not find an actor for this role."
And despite its depth, the film is funny again.
Whatever Alex is shooting - everything turns out to be a comedy.
In the film "The Last Days of Emma Blank" (De laatste dagen van Emma Blank, 2009), the director plays a dog.
Or a man who was forced to be a dog.
In this film, which could easily be a Russian classic a la Antoine Checkhoff, everyone plays imposed roles in anticipation of an inheritance.
And this is also funny, and pitiful, and scary.
But, most likely, you will laugh again almost the whole picture.
Sometimes they try to label the film "surreal cinema".
But it is just as surreal as "The Cherry Orchard" or "Big Grub" by Marco Ferreri looks surreal.
Borgman (2013) is a film that made Warmerdam even recognizable to the dwellers of co-working and coworking spaces. Here the director reaches a different level - both in the quality of cinematography and in the power of agitated madness. And yes - unfortunately, there isn't much to laugh at. The plot does not even make sense to retell it, not because it will be a spoiler. It's just that everything is inexplicable here, and therefore, everything lends itself to the most free reading. The film is nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. He was nominated by the Netherlands for an Oscar, but the film was never nominated.
But with Schneider vs. Bax (2015), the director returns to himself in his best years.
Sunny Holland (already funny), everyone is in white pants (to make it look more sunny), there are swamps and canals all around, and it's good to hide corpses in them.
The duel of two killers, stretched out for the entire timekeeping, and, as always, is a panorama of Dutch life and, perhaps, even society.
One of the killers is played by the director himself.
No wonder.
While we are waiting for the release of his next film, which is simply called Nr.
10, I want to be glad that there are still directors for whom there are no boundaries and there is constancy - a sign of skill.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.