Character (1997)

Fantastic!

Absolutely Fantastic

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

This is the second Jan Decleir film I have watched today. It was the Best Foreign Film winner at the 1998 Oscars.The age old story of the hatred between father (Declrir) and son (Fedja van Huêt), a man easy to hate as he was totally without compassion.Katadreuffe, the product of a one-nighter between his father and mother, grows up and makes good, but it is only to spite his father.If watching this film reminds you of a classic novel, it is it's Dickensonion mood, where we are focused on the poverty of the city, and the cruelty by government officials.Beautiful cinematography by Rogier Stoffers and Mike van Diem's direction and screenplay are almost perfect.

Operatic. Shakespearean. Greek Tragedy. Complex. Moving. Unflinching in its depiction of human relationships. (I hesitate to use that phrase as 'human relationships' make me want to run.) But as I just wrote, it is classic dynamics of a distant father and a son. A boy becoming his own man. The harsh expectation of Northern European culture.Beautifully shot. I tend to think of this as the Dutch 'Godfather' in its look.Not 'realistic', but as in all great drama it is -true-.It can also be tough to watch... bad decisions. Occasional mis-guided 'heroism' which can lead to self-destructiveness.I hate this review... all talk about 'themes' and 'meaning'. More than anything? It is beautiful and tragic.

I was profoundly impressed with this Oscar winning Dutch movie. It features a strong and greatly compelling story, strong characters, fine acting, great production values and whatever more. A true masterpiece in my book!It's mostly a story and character driven movie. This might sound boring to some but let me tell you that "Karakter" is anything from boring, unlike most other Dutch productions within the same genre. It's a real exciting psychological thriller, without really featuring any action or much dialog in it. Mike van Diem does an amazing job telling the movie its story. He just doesn't only did a great job with its story but also with the movie its look and atmosphere and he got the best out of the actors.The movie is also really made by it's acting. The acting was surprisingly great within the entire movie, which already is a big accomplishment for any Dutch production. Fedja van Huêt, despite his young age, carries the movie really well and he has probably already played the role out of his career in this movie, even though his career obviously isn't over yet. Same goes for Jan Decleir. He plays one of the most complicated and memorable villain role out of movie history, I kid you not. Even though he is not the type of movie villain who kills or uses violence, he is more ruthless in the way his personality is and how he subtly moves around and is important throughout the movie, by giving his son a hard accomplishing anything in life. An even bigger accomplishment from Decleir when considering how few lines he actually has throughout the movie. Yeah it might sound weird but he reminded me a lot of Darth Vader from the Star Wars movies. He's just as cold and ruthless, doesn't show any emotions, walks around with a long cape and in the end his character seeks redemption with his son.The movie is set in the the 1920's Rotterdam. The movie has a nice impressive historical look over it and does an amazing job reconstructing Rotterdam of the 1920's, even though the movie didn't got filmed in Rotterdam itself, which isn't anything too surprising considering Rotterdam got bombed heavily during WW II and almost all of the old city heart is completely gone now days and the city is filled with modern buildings and skyscrapers now days. Normally it's very small scaled and perhaps even a bit embarrassing to look at a Dutch movie that tries to recreate a different much older time period. Mostly they'll trow one old car in a sequences, with 10 people walking around in old clothes and that's it. But "Karakter" is however very detailed with its look and overall atmosphere.Besides the movie its look and overall cinematography and directing I also really liked the movie its editing, which kept the movie going at all times. It uses some nice cutting tricks to achieve this and it really helps to make this movie an exciting one to watch.It's a movie that sucks you right in its story and doesn't ever let you go. You'll forget everything around you and won't be able to get your eyes of the screen, or even blink for that matter. The movie doesn't feature a story I would normally like within a movie, especially not from a Dutch movie but "Karakter" just does basically everything right to grab you and suck you right into it. An haunting, beautiful, impressive movie, that you'll won't easily forget.10/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

There is Shylock, Iago and the Wicked Witch of the West but they're all sissies compared to Dreverhaven. You've just never seen a more evil vile character exist on film. If he were coming to my house to collect I think I'd soil my pants and offer him my first born.From a learning point of view the depiction of urban life in Holland between the wars was truly enlightening. While being told the Dutch were stern bean counters, we're usually shown life in the Netherlands as tulip frolicking with windmills in the background. CHARACTER can function as an enjoyable study of a culture fixed on hard economics with passion smoldering underneath (same with GIRL WITH A PEARL EARING, which you shouldn't miss).But Baliff/Dad Dreverhaven should've been allowed to repo a personal Oscar. The scenes were he evicts the "dying" and suffers a nightmare were worth an admission price. Not to mention the most miserable mother you've seen on screen this side of Grendel's nanny. I enjoyed the Dickens-like life of our young protagonist but his parents steal the show.