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Character

1997, Movie, R, 124 mins

Character: Review

CHARACTER | CHARAKTER | KARAKTER
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Winner of the 1998 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and with good reason: This superbly crafted Dutch film set in 1920s Rotterdam is a taut and altogether gripping portrait of a man haunted by the figure of the father he doesn't even know. Young lawyer Katadreuffe (Fedja van Huet) is arrested for the murder of a heartless bailiff named Dreverhaven (Jan Decleir), whose sole pleasure in life came from evicting impoverished tenants and bankrupting anyone foolish enough to borrow money from his credit company. But that's only half the story. In flashback, we learn that Dreverhaven enjoyed a one-night stand years earlier with his brusque housekeeper (Betty Schuurman), and though the tryst produces a child -- Katadreuffe -- she ignores Dreverhaven's persistent proposals of marriage and raises the child alone. Katadreuffe grows up poor, hating his powerful but absent father and determined to become a successful lawyer. But at every turn he runs into the brick wall that is the heartbroken and vengeful Dreverhaven, until it seems Katadreuffe's only chance of success depends on the destruction of his malevolent father. Imagine Great Expectations rewritten by Dostoyevsky -- an up-by-the-bootstraps tale set in a haunted world where free will is determined by dark emotions -- and you're pretty close to what director Mike van Diem achieves. The lavish period detail, superb cast and the sinuous camerawork by Rogier Stoffers are the gilding on an intricate and powerfully realized story of festering unhappiness and inexorable destiny. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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