character

Character - a few additions
A few remarks and additions to the reviews so far. - The place where the story is situated is near and in the old harbour in Rotterdam (the Netherlands). It was filmed partially on the fifth floor of an old harbour building, with additional scenes in Antwerp (if i recall it correct), in Germany and in Poland. In Rotterdam, i was part of one scene. As a professional calligrapher, i had earlier prepared several properties for the film, and then was asked to be on stage, too. Mike van Diem made a lasting impression, a friendly and capable director indeed. The hours of waiting, the minutes of shooting, resulted in a few seconds of appearance in the final version of the movie - that's obviously the way it goes. In the last half minute, the hand of Jan Decleir (seemingly - it's actually my hand) writes the signature of the testament. It was a small contribution to a masterpiece, which is strongly based on two novels of F. Bordewijk, 'Karakter' and 'Katadreuffe'. Charakter is the kind of...

Heartbreaking and Extraordinary
It's ironic that "Character" won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film the same year that "Titanic" won for Best Picture. "Character" makes "Titanic" look like a grade-school production of "Gilligan's Island." One of the most powerful films I've ever seen, it was painful and difficult to watch, and absolutely brilliant. With not a false note anywhere, the epic scope of the story, the acting and the cinematography drew me in and broke my heart. Not to be missed.

Packs a Lot of Dramatic Punch
CHARACTER is all about tough love. Extremely tough. It is about family. In this instance, an extremely distant pair of parents and a young man seeking his identlty. It's also about great psychological drama, superior period design and unbelievably assured freshman filmmaking from director Mike Van Diem. It's also, as the title implies, about "building character." The father, Dreverhaven, has some unusual character building techniques, to put it mildly. He at one point tells the young man's mother that he will strangle 9/10s of the life out of son Jacob, but the remaining 1/10ths will make him strong. And just for good measure, he may take the last tenth as welll.
Jan Decleir, as Dreverhaven, is a revelation. He's built like Gerard Depardieu and is even more preposessing than that fine actor on screen. He would make a great Javert or Lear in some future production. Victor Löw, as Jacob's mentor and elder friend, De Gankeelar, is unlike anyone you will have seen on...

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