A boy and a girl meet on the beach in Southern Spain. A pretty girl. A handsome boy. And yes, they fall for each other. But the film does not for a moment give the idea that this is a nice uncomplicated holiday love affair. Even a nice little fling is not in the cards right from the start. This is nothing less than an amour fou, and that even may be putting it mildly. Here amour fou is not just a metaphor for a fierce and passionate love; real insanity is at work from the start. Complete surrender is an understatement: the girl in particular throws herself into a death-defying adventure that just has to be fatal. Black Swans is a film with two predominant protagonists and a very dramatic story. A film like this places great demands on its actors. Even more: its actors make or break it. This film stands proud, largely thanks to Carice van Houten as the confused crazy Marleen and Dragan Bakema as the sensual Vince. A film that is also above all a début film, with the dauntlessness that is characteristic of the better début film. The title of the film refers to an old Dutch nursery rhyme. The cryptic song about swans that sail across the sea and a broken key. Within the context of the film, it is an ominous nursery rhyme. About dying swans, really. (GjZ)
Film details
- Country of production
- Netherlands
- Year
- 2005
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2005
- Length
- 88"
- Medium/Format
- 35mm
You may also like this
-
O diabo a quatro
Two men and a boy quarrel about the love of a young woman, who works as a nanny and has decided to go into prostitution. Feature debut by Andrade is a
-
How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer
Pleasantly languid film with a lightly comic and documentary character. During a sweltering summer, three women in a Mexican-American family undergo a
-
Folie privée
Variation on Medea in a breathtakingly intense hour. Pascale is divorced from Jan, but when she wants to move in to the country house with their seven