During the opening of the film I encountered a piece of music by Alexandre Desplat, which had somehow made it into the film. I can hardly understand why the director chose to use an existing piece of music which is this powerfully linked and originally composed for the film Syriana.
In this fictional work the filmmaker attempts to capture the coming home of a soldier. Bearing the coffin of his lost friend and fellow platoon member Diederick, Johnny visits the grieving family. All of this is surrounded by a majority of long scenes with awkwardly written dialogues and uninteresting sound design (read: silence). The pacing of the edit is beyond slow, which makes me feel like the maker was required to meet a certain running time.
Awkward seems to be the general keyword in this film. We are supposed to sympathize and emote with the characters, but we do not learn much about the dead soldier at all. What we do get is horrible musical numbers like Johnny's mother singing very badly in a bar at a coming home party and a group of soldiers lip syncing to a cover song while doing a cheesy dance in the desert. And out of nowhere the Syriana piece from Desplat comes in again randomly. A flashback used in one of the scenes contains no diegetic sound, but as the German expressionist filmmakers knew as early as in the late 20's, the horror and emotion is in the sound. Shouts, gunfire and atmospheric sound are all withheld from the viewer. This could've been a bold choice however, if the filmmaker had chosen to feature a bit more of it.
The music recycling early in the film sadly seems to be an ongoing trend in the unimportant and self indulgent subsidized cinema of the Netherlands. This obvious Amsterdam Film Academy style work is definitely of that category.
4 out of 10, because of Kyteman's performance.
In this fictional work the filmmaker attempts to capture the coming home of a soldier. Bearing the coffin of his lost friend and fellow platoon member Diederick, Johnny visits the grieving family. All of this is surrounded by a majority of long scenes with awkwardly written dialogues and uninteresting sound design (read: silence). The pacing of the edit is beyond slow, which makes me feel like the maker was required to meet a certain running time.
Awkward seems to be the general keyword in this film. We are supposed to sympathize and emote with the characters, but we do not learn much about the dead soldier at all. What we do get is horrible musical numbers like Johnny's mother singing very badly in a bar at a coming home party and a group of soldiers lip syncing to a cover song while doing a cheesy dance in the desert. And out of nowhere the Syriana piece from Desplat comes in again randomly. A flashback used in one of the scenes contains no diegetic sound, but as the German expressionist filmmakers knew as early as in the late 20's, the horror and emotion is in the sound. Shouts, gunfire and atmospheric sound are all withheld from the viewer. This could've been a bold choice however, if the filmmaker had chosen to feature a bit more of it.
The music recycling early in the film sadly seems to be an ongoing trend in the unimportant and self indulgent subsidized cinema of the Netherlands. This obvious Amsterdam Film Academy style work is definitely of that category.
4 out of 10, because of Kyteman's performance.
