Life is a bruising tragicomedy devoid of any comforting sense of meaning in the films of Alex van Warmerdam, who somehow always manages to invest all this sour absurdism with wry wit and playful mischief. Nodding to Fellini in its self-consciously blank title, Nr. 10, the veteran Dutch writer-director’s tenth film is a darkly funny romp that takes a wild narrative swerve around the midway point, jumping through the looking glass and into the Twilight Zone.
With its hints of David Lynch’s matter-of-fact surrealism and Roy Andersson’s deadpan gloom, van Warmerdam’s signature blend of caustic humour and cold-blooded cruelty is not suited to all tastes, but it achieves fruitful results here. In his first film since the relatively slight hit-man comedy Schneider Vs. Bax (2015), the director returns to the ambitiously weird thriller mode that characterised earlier work like The Last Days of Emma Blank (2009) and Borgman (2013), this time adding sci-fi spectacle to his list of genre experiments. Following its domestic release in late September, Nr. 10 makes its wider European debut this week in competition at Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn.
Van Warmerdam regular Tom Dewispelaere plays Günter, an egocentric actor in the thick of tense rehearsals for a new stage play that seems to be heading for disaster. Besides a deepening rift with co-star Marius (Pierre Bokma), who keeps forgetting his lines, Günter is also conducting a sneaky secret affair with female lead Isabel (Anniek Pheifer), who happens to be married to director Karl (Hans Kesting). As his suspicions about the affair are confirmed, Karl hatches a darkly funny revenge plot by making radical changes to his play, sidelining and humiliating Günter, who reacts with a brutal act of sabotage on opening night.
Meanwhile, Günter’s grown-up daughter Lizzy (Frieda Barnhard) is spying on her father for cryptic reasons, and sinister strangers are monitoring him from a distance. This surveillance is being orchestrated by a cabal of German Catholic priests led by Monsignor Wassinski (Dirk Böhling), who operate very much like an organised crime family, even to the point of committing murder. Their interest in Günter is rooted in his mysterious childhood as an orphan foundling, discovered in a forest at the age of four, then raised by foster parents. When the time is right, they appeach him with an offer he cannot refuse: if he agrees to join their outlandish secret mission, they will reveal his true family history in an audacious twist which elevates van Warmerdam’s comic thriller into a deranged space odyssey.
Famously unwilling to explain his films, van Warmerdam has a “fear of meaning” that can sometimes feels wilfully obtuse. But as a loose thematic thread, Nr. 10 is an extended riff on deception, distraction and deadly betrayal. Perhaps the biggest sleight of hand is pulled off by the director himself, who initially lulls viewers into believing we are watching a fairly straight backstage farce about bed-hopping theatrical narcissists before steering two of the main characters down a whole different mind-bending, life-changing path.
The hilariously bleak shock ending to Nr. 10 is probably Van Warmerdam’s most macabre yet, like one of Buñuel’s savage anticlerical satires blown up to Kubrick-sized space-opera dimensions. By skewering the arrogance and hypocrisy of organised religion, Catholicism especially the director comes perilously close to delivering the kind of clearly comprehensible “meaning” that he normally resists in his work. But this church-bashing subplot is just one aspect of a deeper story about treachery and delusion, amplifying the mystery that lingers after the credits roll. Van Warmerdam is not letting his audience off the hook quite so easily.
A grim fairy tale, peopled by mostly unsympathetic characters, and split into two tenuously connected halves, Nr. 10 may prove too preposterous and bleak for some tastes. But van Warmerdam and his team hold our attention with sardonic humour, mounting suspense and authentically gritty performances. Technical elements are typically slick, with a tastefully chilly colour palette and lightly stylised look that speaks to the director’s background as both painter and theatre director, culminating in some impressively large-scale visual effects work. Several regular collaborators, including producer brother Marc van Warmerdam and cinematographer Tom Erisman, feature in the credits. Van Warmerdam himself sets the cheerfully off-kilter musical mood with a jumpy, discordant, jazzy score.
Director, screenwriter: Alex van Warmerdam
Cast: Tom Dewispelaere, Frieda Barnhard, Hans Kesting, Anniek Pheifer, Dirk Böhling, Pierre Bokma
Producer: Marc van Warmerdam
Cinematographer: Tom Erisman
Editor: Job ter Burg
Music: Alex van Warmerdam
Production company: Graniet Film BV (NL)
World sales: Nine Film
Venue: Black Nights Film Festival, Tallinn (main competition)
In Dutch, German, English
100 minutes
