Leef!

... in Dutch film that this film did not win any more prizes. For starter, the acting is really great, especially Peter Blok, Al. And Sterre Herstel gives us the full range of her not inconsiderable, 10 year old talent. This film is multi-layered and isn't ashamed to explore that. The director isn't afraid to be accused of pretentiousness. And rather than use the meandering story lines of past and present throughout the film, he sensed correctly that that would be a gimmick. So after half an hour the story is more linear, more present-time oriented. The whole mother-is-both-instrument-of-death-as-well-as-life might seem a feel good solution geared towards an happy end, but one can see it simply as poetic justice. Or butterfly wings. Or an underlining of the statement that we should live life to the fullest, because we control so very little in our life. Of course there's life's little irony that the director of Live! died two days before the premiere, but in the end what does that matter to the film? Nothing.