De passievrucht

FATHER'S AFFAIR (Maarten Treurniet - Netherlands 2003).

I was just on my way out to catch ZWARTBOEK, the latest film by Paul Verhoeven, in cinema when my party canceled at the very last moment and at the same time this movie started on television. By pure chance, DE PASSIEVRUCHT features the same two female stars, Carice van Houten en Halina Reijn.

After the sudden death of his wife (Carice van Houten) Armin Houderhout (Peter Paul Muller) finds out he was sterile all his life, but he has a 14-year old son. His new girlfriend (Halina Reijn) urges him to let it rest, but he persist and wants to find out who the father of his child is. Based on the novel by Karel Glastra van Loon, the film is constructed as a whodunit, a pleasant diversion from the self-indulgent novel, that works perfectly for the film. Basically well acted, well shot and a very good screenplay by Kees van Beijnum.

No cinematic innovations, just well crafted film-making by Treurniet et co. and for current acting in Dutch cinema, this is about as good as it gets. Peter Paul Muller, Carice van Houten, Halina Reijn, Frank Lammers, Jan Decleir, they all give very good performances. Just as I mentioned, I fell into this in the first few minutes when it came on TV, but I kept on watching it and was sucked into the story almost immediately. Fast-paced and humor to spare. One of the highlights: when Armin (Muller) is (practically hiding) in the bathroom smoking a joint to calm his nerves, just as he is about to have sex with two women (Carice van Houten en Halina Reijn) and Carice van Houten tries to persuade him to come out of the bathroom and presses her boobs against the glass door. That's my kind of fun, but don't worry, it's an insightful film.

Camera Obscura --- 8/10

First of all, the performance , direction n written well, not bad at all. the movie is nice and not boring. but there are some major flaws in the END which ruined the movie.

the story plot is kinda not NEW , there are some similar movies (foreign n English) with same plot. that husband is sterile and wife want to have child. and then things get complicated when wife got pregnant. But here in this movie, wife got pregnant though but she dead too. and then husband is looking or searching for real father and wanna know why she did that? .. now major is flaw here is that there is NOT much scenes or flash backs of wife /husband relationship or wife's lover scenes. even there are no scenes of conversations between dead wife n husband. which i think its a major flaw.

another major flaw which ruined the movie in ending that , once he found out then there is no explaining or aftermath of dead wife's deeds. even there are some few scenes of dead wife having flirtatious behaviour with multiple guys which complicate the movie but she did cheat with and why him? there is no explanation.

the only understanding in this movie that WIFE want to get pregnant. thats it.

De Passievrucht is an adaptation of the debute novel of the relatively young but talented Dutch writer Karel Glastra van Loon. Years ago I read his second novel (Lisa's adem, or 'Lisa's breath'), was fascinated by it, and planned on reading his first. As usual, I never got to it. Fortunately, they recently made a movie out of his book, so last night I went and saw it in the cinema.

They did a great job. This movie is about a man who finds out he has been sterile all his life. This has two consequences: first, he and his girlfriend will never be able to have kids of their own, and second, his thirteen years old son can't actually be his son. His wife, who died nine years ago, can't tell him who the real father is anymore. But he must know. So he starts his quest for the painful truth. A number of old friends are interrogated, and his girlfriend suffers the consequences. She's in deep pain about never being able to have children, and meanwhile, all he does is chase his own nightmare.

How events eventually unfold will remain a mystery to you, my dear reader, until you watch the movie. Which I highly recommend you to do. It's a great movie about father-son relationships, about love, about sex and passion, about cheating. The movie's got humor, it has tears, it has a lot of anger. And it features the ever-sympathetic actor Frank Lammers!!