Renée Soutendijk

Sweet Dreams

by
Hayati Azis as Siti

If Knives Out weren’t a lark it would look something like Sweet Dreams (Zoete Dromen), a thriller from the Netherlands where the usual murder mystery is sharpened by a hit of oppression mixed with anti-colonial hatred. It’s a lovely-looking, lushly colourful movie set around 1900 in the Dutch East Indies where the white colonists are running a sugar-factory concern and living the high life indoors – dressing entirely in white for dinner, dining on sucking pig – while the brown folk do all the work outdoors. Unlike the usual Agatha Christie-style whodunit, all the sublimated stuff gets given its moment in the sun. There are servants who they simmer with resentment. There are natives … Read more

The Fourth Man

by
Christine and Gerard

Paul Verhoeven’s erotic drama The Fourth Man (De vierde Man) opens, to ominous Wagnerian rumbling, on a black screen and then as the credits roll Verhoeven dramatically reveals a spider in close-up, first stunning a fly caught in its web and then cocooning it in silk. The whole process, in agonising detail. What Verhoeven treats us to over the next 100 minutes is a garish, extended version of the same idea. In many respects it’s a warm-up for Basic Instinct, with Jeroen Krabbé in the Michael Douglas role and Renée Soutendijk as the blonde, deadly spider. The read-across isn’t total and for much of the film it isn’t really clear who is the … Read more