Flodder

"Flodder" tells the story of the anti social family of the same name. Their house turns out te be on toxic soil and so the city council is forced to find a new place for them to live. A social worker proposes to give them a vacant house in an upper class neighbourhood. Of course this results in agitation and problems.

"Flodder" performed very well at the box office. It resulted in several sequels and a TV series. Nevertheless almost 40 years later I could find very few reviews.

Maybe this has something to do with the fact that the film is generally viewed as "cheap amusement" with a "Louis de Funes" type of humor. In my view this is not entirely correct.

The film is sometimes described as ridiculing the Dutch welfare state, showing that state tolerating and sometimes even rewarding bad behaviour.

The question is however who exactly is being ridiculed?

The Flodder family consists indeed of some petty criminals, but they don't engage in real serious crimes. The story is told through their eyes so inevitably the viewer starts to identify with them.

In my opinion it is much more the wealthy inhabitants of the neighbourhood that are ridiculed. Of these inhabitants the men are treated rather mildly. They don't like the family Flodder very much but are "compensated" by the fact that the sexy and busty daughter Kees (Tatjana Simic) is included. Especially the wealthy women are made fun of. They are proud of the careers of their husbands without doing very much themselves. Nevertheless they feel very much superior to the Flodder family.

The Dutch welvare state finally is represented by the social worker Sjakie (Lou Landré). He doesn't understand much of real life and made me think of the social worker in "A clockwork orange" (1971, Stanley Kubrick).

At the end the neighborhood dispute escalates in some kind of a civil war, underlining, somewhat superfluously, the over the top character of the movie.

Seeing the movie again after many years I must admit that some of the humor (but not all!) has not aged well. An example is the character of Tatjana Simic portrayed as an object of desire of many men. This portraying would be considered sexist today. Even more however you won't find the somewhat sadistic jokes about pets in a contemporary film very easily.

Flodder is without a doubt the funniest film I've ever seen. Timing is the keyword in this movie. I've must have seen the movie for more than 30 times. Every time I discover something new that makes me laugh out loud. The acting is superb and so is the directing. All in all, this is maybe the best movie ever made in Holland.

10/10

Dick Maas made and wrote his first of the Flodders-trilogy as a brilliant comedy without knowing that there would be two sequels which were not so strong. The housing problem in Holland in cities like Amsterdam or Rotterdam is acute and there is above all the problem of illegal immigrants. And what more is: living on a belt or next to a chemical plant can be dangerous. Flodder is more than a simple comedy: it is also a social satire of the cool Dutch bourgeosie who wants to be isolated of the big towns where there is criminality and so on but who goes to the warm countries during holidays to change their mediocre existence. Take Yolanda (Apollonia van Ravenstein), she is bored by her neighbourhood where never happens anything - there are f.i. no "café's" - and tired of her husband Kolonel Wim Kruisman (Herbert Flack) and she starts a sexual adventure with Johny Flodder (Huub Stapel). Alcoholism is also a subject of the movie: the alcohol is made at home and consumed in high quantities and whisky is drunk in floods by Kolonel Kruisman. This comedy is unsurpassed and is at the same time a sociological study of the escape out of town of the high-class citizens to the outskirts.

"Flodder" is one of the funniest movies ever made and few people realise that it is a Dutch movie made by none other than the Holland version of John Carpenter, the famous Dick Maas, author and director of the thriller "Amsterdamned". The Flodder family is the reincarnation of the term a-social. When the whole family bunch, basically all bastards, criminals and sluts must be relocated from their City slum because of toxic waste under their house, the city council house no choice. The only available space is in the "Zoendal" - the "Sun Valley" the best area in Amsterdam where all doctors, snobs and businessmen can afford to live their lives. And where the central point of interest and politics is the tennis club of the community. The Flodder family brings devastation to the tranquil world that ruled before. They are simply unbelievable. The characterisation is incredibly funny, beginning with Ma Flodder who searches other people's trash cans for food or making illegal liquor in her cellar and ending with the eldest daughter who is the biggest slut on earth. Together they make the most horrible family imaginable, a sort of immoral mirror image to the Brady Bunch or the Waltons. When the City counsel of Amsterdam hoped that the Flodders would show their good will to be more civilised in their new area, it turns out that Holland's most famous family would rather bring out the worst in the rich people of "Sun Valley"-wonderland. The rest is a hilarious, brilliant and well made social satire that can be watched as a provocative movie as well as a straightforward comedy. Dick Maas at his best. I salute him! Flooder was the Dutch smash hit in 1986 and brought two sequels and a tv series. All of the sequels were nice but not as great as the original.

Flodders (1986) is available on DVD in Germany in a dubbed German version in Dolby Digital 5.1. under the name:

"Flodders -Eine Familie zum knutschen"

Why is First Floor Features, the producer of the movie not bringing the Dick Maas blockbusters out on DVD in the Netherlands, I wonder. The are not even available on video there. These movies have so much potential, still to this day and have a huge silent but true following.

Flodder the movie is a great comedy movie with a wonderful concept and great leading actors. after i watch it 50 times it is still very funny. Because Flodder is still popular there are still rumors to reboot Flodder, That is a totally obsolete idea. Because you get an exact copy like Flodder was. The concept Flodder is also very obsolete especially after more than 30 years.