De komst of Joachim Stiller is based upon the novel of Hubert Lampo. I know the writer personally and it's hard to believe that such a charming person writes such a strange book.
Anyway, I find this movie one of the best Belgian movies ever made. I do have the television version on video (+- 180 mins) and that version is okay. Never watch the cinema version because that only has a running time of aprox. 120 mins. By cutting away 60 (sixty !!!) mins of scenes (never understood why they did this) the story becomes very complex and you will not understand the plot of the movie. So always stay with the FULL version not the shorter Cinema/TV movie version !!!!
This movie is a magic realism movie. A real fine mystery about a journalist named Freek who gets a letter one day. Now everybody gets letters everyday so not worth making a movie of this subject you think now. Strange thing is that the letter was posted more then 20 years before Freek was born. How could someone know where Freek should live more then 20 years later as a grown up ? Then more strange things happen,and one name is always returning : 'Joachim Stiller' Who is he ? What's his mission ? Is he an enemy or a friend ? Freek wants to know who that Joachim Stiller is and starts searching.
I will not tell you what happens and how the movie ends, because you just have to see it. It's an old movie, and no spectacular special FX, but it's a real scary movie in his own way. I saw this movie for the first time at age 9, and I can tell you that I had nightmares of it. Something I never had or have when watching movies.(even not the bloody and scary horror movies.)
You'll have to search in private collections for this movie because I heard (it's a rumour not confirmed) that the last master copy of this movie is lost (stolen/destroyed ???) and not anymore in the archives of the public television Station (VRT, (that time known as BRT) ) wich was co producer and so the chance they'll ever show this great movie on television again is as good as not.
