A symphonic multi-character tragicomedy from Dutch writer-director Aaron Rookus, Idyllic world premieres in Rotterdam this week, the only home-grown feature vying for prizes in the Big Screen Competition section. Ruminating on deep questions about the meaning of life, terminal illness and painfully broken families, mostly through a comic filter, Rookus does a confident job with an ambitiously broad narrative mosaic, even if its intersecting plot lines become a little tangled in places. With its strong ensemble cast of locally famous stars, this ironically titled pan-generational panorama should do well when it opens in domestic cinemas next month, while its universal themes and glossy production values could translate into crossover appeal in overseas markets.
Rookus opens Idyllic with a knowing nod to Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960), a giant statue of an ostrich being carried by helicopter high above a Dutch cityscape, a surreal image that becomes a not-too-subtle metaphorical motif throughout the film. Like ostriches, most of these self-absorbed protagonists are in denial about their empty lives, their failed relationships, and their looming mortality.
At the heart of the film’s interlocking character arcs is Annika (Hadewych Minis), an internationally famous opera singer whose success came at a steep price, sabotaging her marriage and domestic contentment. Between globe-trotting engagements, she struggles to bond with her semi-estranged teenage son Jelmer (Titus Theunissen), while bitterly resenting his new stepmother Tirza (Denise Aznam). In the midst of this low-level psychodrama, Annika receives some shock medical news which leaves her staring death in the face, weighing up decades of regrets and missed opportunities. In a sprinkle of magical realism, Rookus then elides two parallel universes as Annika begins catching glimpses of her alternative self, Hannah (Minis again), the version of her that sacrificed operatic diva ambitions for a more conventional office career and suburban family life.
Orbiting this doppelganger duo are multiple seemingly disparate characters who eventually turn out to be connected. Like Annika’s neurotic brother Victor (Eelco Smits), who has recently come out of the closet after leaving his wife, and is now cautiously dipping his toe in the gay dating scene, with awkwardly funny results. Or world-weary Joke (Beppie Melissen), a brutally unsentimental grandmother who rages against God for keeping her alive so long, even offering to pay her pool cleaner to help her overdose. In the film’s most whimsically goofy subplot, pre-teen schoolboy Timo (Isacco Limper) earnestly believes a fortune teller’s warning that he has only one week to live, and sets about making his peace with the universe before his departure.
In stark tonal contrast, Timo’s father is bleakly pessimistic teacher Musa (Nabil Mallat), quietly seething inside against his arrogant young students, his passive-aggressive co-workers and his unfaithful wife. “You’re not special, keep that in mind,” Musa scowls. “It makes life a lot easier.” This fatalistic world-view seems to speak for Rookus himself. Having survived testicular cancer in his early twenties, the director has been musing ever since on the arbitrary nature of luck, both good and bad. In his press notes for Rotterdam, he stresses the film’s message that fate is cruel and life is random, but that learning to accept this can be liberating as well as tragic. As Musa puts it: “there is beauty in suffering too.” The bittersweet twist in Annika’s grass-is-greener vision of the path not taken is that her alternative self, Hannah, is equally dissatisfied and discontent, just for different reasons.
All this might make Idyllic sound like a dauntingly grim experience, but Rookus wraps up these anguished characters in layers of life-affirming levity, empathy and absurdism. Even if the darkly comic gloom of Charlie Kaufman is a clear influence, this story has an attractively sunny, bright, polished look that borrows more from the visual grammar of mainstream family entertainment than from art-house pain-porn.
Idyllic does not always hit the target: there are a few glib observations, hectoring lines, and thinly drawn characters here, plus some untidy plot confusion when the Annika/Hannah timelines cross. But overall, Rookus manages to carry this multi-voice choral work to its conclusion with impressive dexterity, ending with a Kafka quote about life being meaningless, further proof that there a few things more hilarious than existential despair.
Director, screenwriter: Aaron Rookus
Cast: Hadewych Minis, Eelco Smits, Beppie Melissen, Nabil Mallat, Isacco Limper, Titus Theunissen, Barbara Sloesen, Pieter Embrechts, Sam Louwyck
Cinematography: Emo Weemhoff
Editing: David Verdurme
Production design: Kurt Rigole
Music: Sten Sheripov
Producers: Maarten van der Ven, Layla Meijman
Production companies: Studio Ruba (NL), Polar Bear (Belgium), Allfilm (Estonia)
World sales: LevelK
Venue: International Film Festival Rotterdam (Big Screen Competition)
In Dutch
99 minutes
