Character

I loved this movie because it is about the extent to which a man goes, to make sure that his offspring is successful in life after he is gone. Or at least that is how I took it, that it is about a man who wants more than anything, more than happiness in his own life, for his son to stand on his shoulders and go even farther in the world and he spends his life setting things up for his son to learn what he needs to learn so that he will be on top, Too. It is about striving to make sure that your LINE, survives and thrives. It ruins the life of the man who is the father, but the only thing he cares about is for his son to stand on his shoulders and go farther because he gave him all that was necessary in life to achieve.I believe that when you have children, that the most important thing in your life becomes making sure that they are successful in life and can take care of the next generation so that for generations, your offspring and their offspring and their offspring, and on and on, are successful people in life and all rise to the top, that they do not fail. To accomplish this in your lifetime parents often have to push and force children to educate themselves extremely well in order to have that success, before they even fully appreciate that it is necessary to do all the preparation IN Order to have the kind of life that will enable them to help their own offspring go on to school (for example) and prepare themselves to go on to greatness for the next generation and so on, so that a family line can remain on top in life over many many generations. This is about a man who understood what it takes to be on top and after he had a son, the only thing he cares about in life and felt a great obligation to, was his son, and to make sure that no matter what happened in life, after he was gone, that his son would be able to rise to the top and be successful and be able to take his own children and propel them to the top, too. It is a very sad movie about what it takes and how some men care so much about accomplishing this most important goal in life that they sacrifice much in their own lives to see this end result realized. It takes place long ago but is a story of the ages.I LOVE This movie. Really, it is about a man who has the very deepest loves his son and for his future offspring and their offspring. He is determined to make sure, starting with his son, that future generations are not submerged. His ONLY care in life is to make sure that his son stands on his shoulders and goes farther in life than he. While he is working toward this goal, the son is full of hate for his father, never understanding that it is from the deepest love for him that any father could ever have, that he has done everything he did in life was because of the love he has for his son and his son's children to come and future generations of his line. The father loves the son so much that his life is only for giving everything to his son, making Everything possible for his son and future generations. So it is about devotion to the offspring you create and going all the way to make sure that your child or children succeed in life and about loving each forthcoming generation of individuals coming after more than even your son understands before he has his own children to raise.You do not understand the hated father until the end of this film.A very powerful film and a story that has been going on for thousands of years in men who achieve greatness and who do Everything possible to make sure their line remains great. I think like this, understand this view and recognize that this is the path exceptionally strong and hugely successful men have taken in life over thousands of years.I see the father as being a very aggressive type of man, all male, if you will and I think he wanted that woman and loved her and that was what the rape was about. Obviously she could not relate to him, but likely another woman would have recognized him. Also, in those times, most women were raped the night of their marriages. In those days many people had repressed feelings and sexuality. If you read the history of early settlers the fathers were very aggressive doling out very severe punishment in many cases. Women were also very repressed at that time in these societies. The woman in the film I believe was also a personality of problems. I view it very differently because of my degrees in history and work as a psychotherapist. Whole societies can have psychological problems with repression and depression yet some people choose to make life work; I believe she chose not to make life work but chose to make life fail when she had a man who wanted to give everything he possibly could to his wife and to his son. I believe that had she accepted his offer of marriage, he would not have made the effort he made in the unusual way to ensure that his only son would have success. I believe the personality & psychological problems of the woman were partially because of the way she was raised in that time. BUT some people do not let life cripple them, and ruin their lives, no matter the times in which they were born.I think it is difficult for people in this day and age to understand very aggressive men but the men like the one in this movie CARVED out this country and other countries building big businesses, etc. because that is what it took and Takes sometimes. Now we want to see gentle men who are NICE BUT look what GENTLE and NICE men has brought our society! Aggressive men like the one in this movie have been the powerhouses of societies for thousands of years and you can not judge history by our time and that is the mistake I believe many people today make. I hope I have made it clear how the times were different and a rape of love was common place. Now sex is not so rare and women are not usually raped by the men they love but even today those who are raped go on with their lives for the most part, as did women in that time, except for a few with other psychological problems like the woman in the film. I believe she caused the man to go to extreme lengths to ensure the right outcome for his son. Many people today had ancestors JUST like the people in this film but the women did not ruin their own and everyone else's lives by refusing to marry and accepted the tremendous love of the men, like the man in this film, who had the greatest desire to give everything to their families.I choose to focus on the father's tremendous love for his only son and for future generations, not on the woman's mental problems. BUT it takes two to tango and I believe she caused the Unhappy life for all of them and made necessary for the father to make extraordinary efforts for the future welfare of his line of human beings. HE knew what life should be all about, that true love means that you love all your children and after you get your children capable of taking care of their own children that you continue to love, you love your children's children, yet unborn and you love your children's children and future generations. You created the line of human beings related to you and what matters to you is that all of them do well in life and if you can help make that happen, you do all you can so that each future generation is not submerged by life but is able to thrive and set the next generation on paths to greatness. Few men are able to accomplish this but it is true love for your offspring and lots of things cause this great desire to fail such as the ill health of the mother & early death OR Fathering a child with a woman who spends her life trying to instill hatred for you, in your only child together, so as to make it impossible to achieve your goals for the love of your son, and instead leaving generations destroyed. Very hard, even if you work hard all your life to be able to guarantee a good future for future generations. It requires you instilling in the next generation the sense that failure to perform these goals means your own abject failure in life so that each generation does make sure their own children are equipped to take care of the succeeding generations. The mistake this man makes, that you discover only at the end, is that he could not do it without having the woman as his loving wife.

I saw this film in the movie house shortly after it first opened, in Chicago, Illinois. The film has haunted me ever since. I have decided to purchase the film at this time. I want it to be part of my permanent collection of memorable films.This is basically the story of a bureaucrat, not an intellectual. He is a man who makes his living as a bailiff who conducts foreclosures at the order of the local court. His business often requires him to remove the person's property from a real estate location. As a bailiff, he is allowed to keep the percentage of the property value as a fee for his services on behalf of the court. It seems cruel. This is not the sort of occupation that someone goes to college in order to become. In the course of his private life, he has a sexual liaison with his housekeeper, who is as stern a personality as he is himself. One would not call the liaison a rape exactly, however there is a very large element of pressure from him in the matter. She becomes pregnant. When he discovers that, he proposes to marry her, but he does so in a very dry and forced way. She declines the offer. Neither of them are very warmhearted people. The child born of the relationship is a beautiful child. That's the beginning of the story. The remainder of the story is the interaction of the father and the child at a very great distance. By the end of the film one has gotten a very clear idea of character in a human being. I will not spoil the movie further by revealing more details. However, if you see this film with a receptive attitude, it will be one of the 10 films that change your life. pws, Chicago.

The dvd was as described and played perfectly. It was delivered on time.

How this poorly made movie even got nominated for an Academy Award is astounding, but it actually won! Unbelievable, really. Sure, the sets are immaculate and the story is mildly compelling, but the execution and acting is simply awful. What could have been a marvelous movie is done in by idiotic scenes and plain stupid dialogue, Scene after scene rung untrue and contrived. Lead actor was rather a drab dolt, and his mother equally uninteresting and dull. Every character was underdeveloped and it was impossible to garner any sympathy at all for any of them. It tried too hard to be artsy and deep, and seemed to have fooled many people. Many worthy entries for this year got pushed aside for this? It's a crime and an outright shame. Catch it for free online if you're curious, but more than likely you're going to be disappointed. It's truly a ridiculous film, with very little to offer in the way of serious or even light entertainment value. The soundtrack is overly dramatic, distracting, and downright annoying in several areas. Cliches and predictable outcomes abound. It's things like this movie winning that make the Academy Awards kind of a joke these days, about at relevant as the United Nations. Lobbying and schmoozing the right people paid off for the makers of this film, apparently.

This is like no other movie you have seen. A young man strives mightily to improve himself, imagining that his successes are all his own, that he is self made, that his parents ahve done nothing for him. But we see all the ways in which he is very much his father's and his mother's son. Wonderful sense of life lived by the poor in pre-WW II Rotterdam. I think this is one of the ten best movies of all time.

foreign language movies- boring & tedious! so much work to understand them at all & so slow! what's going on in them anyway? but if you are tired of movies that are all the same, movies you know how they end even as they begin(all romcom, action ad, sci-fi, romance) then why not make the effort? this one here is the place to start. so unexpected , truly dark and weird. and Dutch. won an Oscar..

La famiglia è il nucleo su cui si basa la società, ma al tempo stesso può essere anche, e purtroppo, la fonte di profondi dolori e ingiustizie. Come capita al giovane Jacob Katadreuffe (Fedja van Huet) che il giorno della sua laurea viene portato sanguinante in questura con l’accusa di aver ucciso il terribile e implacabile Ufficiale Giudiziario Dreverhaven (Jan Decleir, già coprotagonista del bellissimo “L’albero di Antonia”) suo padre naturale.Con una lunga serie di flashback, nella Rotterdam dei primi decenni del Novecento, ripercorriamo la vita di Jacob figlio di Joba Katadreuffe (Betty Schuurman), che al momento del suo concepimento è al servizio di Dreverhaven. In una notte di eccitamento il suo datore di lavoro se la porta – letteralmente – al letto. Dopo avere la certezza di essere incinta Joba abbandona Dreverhaven, nonostante questo si offra ripetutamente di sposarla. Al piccolo dà il nome di battesimo del padre, che però non intende mai più frequentare.Jacob cresce considerato da tutti come un vero e proprio “bastardo”, visto che la madre non rivela a nessuno il nome del padre. Padre che però allunga la sua ombra sul piccolo che inizia a educare secondo le sue regole: strozzandolo metaforicamente fino a lasciargli solo un decimo dell’aria da respirare, in modo da renderlo forte e senza scrupoli come lui stesso.Ma, ovviamente, questo segnerà in maniera profonda e drammatica la vita del giovane, che rinuncerà per ambizione all’amore, e odierà con tutto il proprio essere suo padre…Tratto dal racconto “Dreverhaven en Katadreuffe” e dal romanzo “Karakter” entrambi di Ferdinand Bordewijk, questo bel film è sceneggiato da Laurens Geels, Ruud van Megen e dallo stesso Mike van Diem, che firma una regia aggressiva e al tempo stesso molto accattivante.La pellicola vince il premio Oscar come miglior film straniero.Il dvd non contiene la sezione extra ma riporta la versione in italiano originale fatta quando il film uscì nelle nostre sale con la voce indimenticabile e stupenda di Riccardo Cucciolla che doppia il pubblico ministero che interroga Katadreuffe.

4.5 out of 5. A tremendous film about rage. The unclaimed son rages against his father's absence. The father rages against the mother's obstinacy. How can one live a trashed life?Arrived without any problems on the day it was promised.

Item as described.

GOOD.

Contrairement à ce qui est indiqué dans l'annonce il n'y a pas d'audio en français. Dommage car c'est un excellent film!