ONE WORD REVIEW: Compelling
SUMMARY: A bastard child is strengthened by every opposing move his father makes
DETAILS: 1920’s Netherlands is the beautiful backdrop for this film about a boy who’s mother was impregnated by the town’s oppressive bailiff. The story begins with the death of the father on the day the son becomes a lawyer and the son his the last to see his father alive… a bloody visit where we don’t know all the details. The story then takes us back in time as we learn of the boy’s origins, his struggles to make a life for himself, his mother’s continual rejection of his father, and his father’s continual attempts to make life difficult for his own son… a conflict designed to build Character.
This film won the Academy Award for best foreign film of 1997.
SCORE: 4.5 out of 5
RELEASE: 1997
RATING: R
FOREIGN
