DE JURK
(THE DRESS)
A film review by Peter Schouten
Copyright 1996 Peter Schouten
The Netherlands 1996 Written and Directed by Alex van Warmerdam With: Alex van Warmerdam, Henri Garcin, Olga Zuiderhoek, Rijk de Gooyer, Rudolph Lucieer, Ariane Schluter, Jack Wouterse, Leny Breederveld, Carol van Herwijnen Music: Vincent van Warmerdam Produced: Marc van Warmerdam, Vincent van Warmerdam GRANIET/ORKATER/VARA
Let's face it. The starring part in this motion picture is given to a dress, and not a pretty one. A bright blue cotton summer dress, with red and yellow leaves printed on it. The movie follows the production of the dress, and after that the people who wear one of the dresses. All those people are in for a disaster, because the dress is a jinx.
"De Jurk" is the third outing for actor-director-writer-producer-and guy who-thought-off-the-movie's-single-sheet-poster Alex van Warmerdam. The first two movies were Abel, about a young man still living at home, and De Noorderlingen (The Northerners) about minding other people's business in the suburbs. Social Comedy is his trade, and this movie is no exception.
Since the dress moves around a lot, and only one woman (Olga Zuiderhoek, who also played a major part in Abel, just like Henri Garcin) is able to hold on to the dress for more than a few days, before being horny, harassed, killed or several of those destinies, the movie feels like a cameo party, but when the movie is distributed abroad, viewers probably won't recognize many.
One of the bigger parts is reserved for Alex van Warmerdam himself. He plays a train conductor who develops a crush on women who wear the dress. Throughout the movie he claims sanity, but he isn't believable for a moment. The woman he spends the larger amount of time pursuing is Ariane Schluter, who in the movie "06" (also with Jack Wouterse) talks a lot about sex but remains relatively dressed, but in this movie she sleeps in the nude and apparently wouldn't need forementioned dress that much, for she walks around naked most of the time.
At the movie's funny finale scenes, the question remains "What was this movie really about?". If a lesson is to be learned from it, it should be "Do not, I repeat Do Not buy this dress" but if you saw the design, you would allready understand that as a matter of taste. Alex van Warmerdam said the movie was about a dress, because dresses are worn by women. Next month "The Birdcage" is showing here, so we'll see about that! :-)
Peter Schouten jps@dataweb.nl FDC Timekeeper FilmInfo Freak
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