Tag Archives: Edda Barends

Feminism Fights EVIL The Only Way Possible in “Broken Mirrors” reviewed! (Cult Epics / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The Best Depiction of the Unpleasant Side of Brothels.  “Broken Mirrors” on Blu-ray.

An Amsterdam brothel Happy House Club clings to the good girls that remain employed to pleasure the reprobate and insensitive johns that visit.  Dora, a virtual working girl lifer, brings in new blood, Diane, a young mother desperate in need of financial support because of her drug addicted husband.  Night after night, customers select through the ever-growing service list the club’s owner deems profitable while the women and the matron manager naively cope with a profession that’s quick, easy cash.  They create a process, a standard of procedure so to speak, that tries to make the work that much less degrading but with each client, a little piece of their humanity is chipped away.  Simultaneously, a methodical serial killer abducts the women he previously surveillances from off the street, chains them to a bed in a remote room, takes snapshots of them in confinement, and slowly starves them to death, which could last months.  The two stories are intertwined and connected by a gender dominance disease in which a slow resistance begins to build to an explosive head.

The unofficial sobriquet of the Queen of Feminism Marleen Gorris had made a name for herself as a staunch supporter of feminism and lesbianism with her controversial and provocative films.  Her acclaimed 1982 debut written-and-directed “A Question of Silence” show oppressed gender solidarity and mutiny against a systematically enslaved masculine society.  Continuing her crusade against the patriarchal grain, Gorris followed up “A Question of Silence” with another powerfully messaged, social commentary film that, again, places women emotions and safety under the unyielding thumb of men two years later with “Broken Mirrors.”  Natively known in the Netherlands as “Gebroken Spiegels,” the film marks the return of select cast from her inaugural feature, marshalling in a new narrative in the neo-feminism cinema under the returning production company Sigma Film Productions with producer Matthijs van Heijningen (“A Woman Like Eve,” “The Cool Lakes of Death.”).

As mentioned, a pair of actresses have carried over from “A Question of Silence” to maintain a principal performance in “Broken Mirrors,” beginning with Henriëtte Tol who played the outwitting secretary in Gorri’s debut returns as a woman working in Amsterdam’s red-light district as a seasoned employee of the Happy House Club.  Tol ups the ferocity levels of her previous performance while still maintaining a gradually steady sex appeal.  Another returning actress who nearly didn’t have any dialogue in her previous role as a mother without a voice is Edda Barends now in a character that can’t stop screaming for her life as the latest abductee chained to a cruddy bed in a cruddy room with a coming-and-going, polaroid-enthused sociopath. In Barends starkly different rage against the man machine archetype, the actress finds herself discomposed in the face man she can’t understand but eventually recognizes his nasty need and withdraws it.  Both women excel beyond the unsavory current conditions and transfer the power that’s been dangling over their heads into themselves.  Newcomer Diane, played by Lineke Rijxman, becomes the key to initiate the unraveling of power of a man-owned brothel that subjugates women not as mere employees of a man-owned business but as nothing more than moneymaking ass-shakers and back-layers.  Rijxman puts in the work of having her character be resilient at work and at home as she juggles a wide variety of disgusting clients to please their whims while coming home to deal with a junkie husband’s mess.  As the story progresses and the women fall deeper under life’s heel, Dora and Diane spark what begins as a mutual friendship that slips gradually into sexual tension, giving them more assurances when they need it the most as the brothel parties become bigger and more intense.  The parallel story runs along the same oppressive path but in unconventional, unlawful, and inhuman way with the kidnap and starvation torture of a young mother.  Eddie Brugman is also a returning “A Question of Silence” actor who now finds himself in the shoes of Jean-Pierre, a mild-manner husband and by all rights societally normal seemingly man who visits the brothel for a quickie, easy money as Francine (Marijke Veugelers) would proclaim, but his dark hobby is to snatch unsuspecting women for his own perverse pleasure of watching and hearing them plea for their lives.  By the end of both stories, connected by Jean-Pierre and who finds himself at the end of the disappointing stick for his kicks, crafts more than one way to not give in and to stand up against male malarkey and nastiness.  The cast rounds out with Carla Hardy, Coby Stunnenberg, Anke van ‘t Hof, Elja Pelgrom, Hedda Oledzky, Arline Renfurm, Johan Leysen, Wim Wama, and Elsje de Wiljn.

Not only is “Broken Mirrors” another contentious and provocative incendiary story that wedges apart men and women, with the latter being victimized and justified in their actions, but Marleen Gorris also directs one hell of a boiling point intertwining between parallelisms that almost have no link to each other until the reveal.  Gorris doesn’t necessarily employ red herrings to keep audiences guessing but rather keep the killer obscure, as all that we are exposed to see is from behind the man, who doesn’t speak much either and if he does speak, his responses are to the point with as little descriptors and adjectives as possible.  Not only is the editing between simultaneous stories organic but also the other editing techniques that materialize the characters’ emotional decaying befit the mostly linear structure, such as with the student party montage at the brothel that does a roundtable of individualized scenarios between the women and their slimeball clients in an emotionally painful grin-and-bear it series that culminates to which one character best describes the ordeal as feeling like a human lavatory.  The feeling is very much mutual with viewers as well, like a used wet nap to scrub off a soul staining filth covering head to toe, as Gorris represents a thematic exactitude of fiercely dividing feminism that would define her career. A clear understanding of how brothels operate is greatly depicted with that flimsy layer of excitement and efficiency to mask the ugliness underneath.

“Broken Mirrors” arrives on a Blu-ray home video from Cult Epics and, once again, resurrects and restores a pièce de résistance of Netherland celluloid. The new 4K high-definition transfer from the original 35mm negative is presented in European widescreen 1.66:1 aspect ratio on an AVC encoded, 1080p, BD50. 35mm print looks none worse the wear over the course of father time with a mint print. Restored color graded has freshened up the natural print palette of the brothel story while the kidnapper’s tale sustains a grayscale to bisect the narrative and the delineation for both presents a palatable depth. The aplenty natural grain doesn’t swarm and takeover the higher pixelations to award us with a satisfying vintage image that now enriched without any smoothing enhancements nor any compression issues to note. The Danish language release comes with two audio tracks: A DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono and a LPCM 2.0 Mono. “Broken Mirrors” fair well from both dual channel formats with the DTS-HD aggrandizing the Lodewijk de Boer razor synth score with intent that in itself is a character. Comparatively elsewhere, the two outputs offer little differences and sate with forefront dialogue, balanced in front an equally balanced ambient track. Optional error-free English subtitles are available with haste text to keep up with the fast-paced Dutch. Special features include an audio commentary by Leiden University film scholar Peter Verstraten, an archived 1984 interview with U.S. sex worker and activist Margo St. James with Cinema 3 host Adriaan van Dis, a promotional still gallery, and trailers. The Cult Epics Blu-ray comes in a clear, traditional snapper sporting the film’s most iconic and titular moment, displayed also on the disc art, while the reverse side of the cover depicts a still image of Carla Hardy. The region free Blu runs at a not rated 110 minutes. A good double bill against “A Question of Silence,” “Broken Mirrors” makes for a morosely on the trot sister feature in more ways than one to further a Marleen Gorris artfully aired agenda.

The Best Depiction of the Unpleasant Side of Brothels.  “Broken Mirrors” on Blu-ray.

Three Women Murder to Stand Up Against EVIL! “A Question of Silence” reviewed! (Cult Epics / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“A Question of Silence” Laughs Louder than Words on Blu-ray!

Three different in age and lifestyle women carry on with the routine of their normal lives until police offices arrest them on the charge of murdering a male owner of a clothing boutique.  Having seemingly no motive and have no connection to each other, never having met each other before, the confounded prosecution hire a psychiatrist to determine the women’s mental state for the brutal beating of the shopkeeper.  As the psychiatrist interviews and digs into their personal lives to give rationality to an irrational crime, she finds herself drawn to the women and their heinous act stemmed by a life history that paints a picture of dehumanizing neglect and of providing zero respect.  Subjectively overwhelms objectivity the deeper she looks into their case and her professionalism is put to the test when she has to decide whether being labeled insane fits the accusation or if a more gender bias systemic issue is at play.

After a rousing first part of feminist revenge with “Red Sun” from 1970, we fast-forward slightly over a decade later in 1982, and moving from out of Germany and into the Netherlands, with Marleen Gorris’s acclaimed crime drama “A Question of Silence.”  With little-to-no film prior film experience, Gorris becomes a provocateuse with her debut picture that stirs controversy amongst one side of the sexes.  “A Question of Silence,” natively titled “De stilte rond Christine M,” or “The Silence around Christine M.,” became the best Dutch film of the year with local accolades, including a Golden Calf for best film at the Netherlands Film Festival the year of release.  Along with the Rudolf Thome’s “Red Sun” and the German social commentary on women integrating into equal social and professional positions, Gorris comes at a time where the status of Dutch women were on the lower end of the gender equality scale, especially in the workforce.  Matthijs van Heijningen, who produced polemic features directed by women filmmakers, such as Nouchka van Brakel’s “A Woman Like Eve” and “The Cool Lakes of Death,” risked yet another credit to his name with the virtually unknown writer-director Marleen Gorris and her sizeable undertone story under his company, Sigma Film Productions.

The narrative opens with Janine van den Bos and her husband Ruud having a flirtatious moment on the couch where Janine playfully annoys her book-reading husband with advances sexual foreplay.  Without knowing who these two people are exactly, other than they’re in a version of a relationship, Janine, played by Cox Habbema, and husband Ruud, played by Eddy Brugman setup metaphorically what’s inherently wrong with society with a woman seeking something and the man ignoring her and practically commanding her to stop the foolishness in a dismissive way.  This opening scene then cuts to the three women being arrested, led up to by intercuts of their daily routine before the police confront them.  We’re treated to some of the most idiosyncratic and grounded performances by Edda Barends as the muted housewife Christine, Nelly Frijda as the cackling coffee barista Annie, and Henriëtte Tol as the beautiful and intelligent secretary Andrea.  The three women never met before, never plotted before, and never killed before but a sudden epiphany while shopping became the straw that broke the camel’s back, turning watershed into bloodshed that unveiled something just as sinister as murder.  Cox Habbema engrosses herself into the psychiatric role as an educated woman analyzing and judging other women while also being judged herself by the opposite sex despite a higher-level of learning and professionalism.  Without exposition, characters express themselves through action while being ambiguous through dialogue, working to convey the lopsided gender equality across the screen perfectly without even one ounce of explanatory detail dropped. 

What’s most intriguing about Gorris’s film is it’s mirroring quality to society.  “A Question of Silence” doesn’t fabricate grand futures or alternate universes with eccentric, wily characters to be metaphorical fodder of expression; instead, Gorris remains earthbound, present, and timely by incorporating true-to-form examples that create derogatory silence on women.  The non-linear narrative, cutting back-and-forth from investigative present to the chronicled past visualizes the women’s struggles and frustrations living inside a male-dominated culture.  From being expected to handling all aspects of the household and childcare, to being brushed off and dismissed by colleagues, to forgotten and underappreciated, Gorris forces a frank contemplation on a patternized and patronized patriarchy.  Heightening the tension, Lodewijk de Boer and Martijn Hasebos’s giallo-esque and experimental soundtrack adds a layer of loadstone to see whether these extempore femme fatales executed a crime. 

Cult Epics, in association with the Eye Film Institute, continue their campaign on delivering thought-provoking, provocative, and controversial Dutch masterpieces onto the high-definition stage with their latest release, “A Question of Silence.”  The AVC encoded, 1080p, BD50 stored feature is presented in the 1:66:1 European widescreen aspect ratio.  The 2K HD scanned transfer and restoration is based off the 35mm print; however, judging by the grain levels and very little preserved detail, especially in a HD scan, I’d say the original negative was 16mm and then blown up for 35mm project, which was a fairly common process.  The noticeable enlargement of grain dampens picture details less favorable yet not the image quality is not a total wash with a stable graded rendering, with a natural skin tone and pigment of objects, and the presence of imperfections kept in a minimum – such as the occasional cigarette burns and dust/dirt.  What excels here mostly is the lack of compression issues so we’re only treated to the innate quirks of the original celluloid film.  The release offers two Dutch language audio options – a LPCM 2.0 mono and a DTS-HD MA 2.0.  Toggling between both tracks, there’s not much different between them until Nelly Frijda’s crone-cackle distinguishes itself with robust HD prominence projecting full-bodied through the dual channel.  Again worth noting, Lodewijk de Boer and Martijin Hasebos synthesizing score, coupled with Marleen Gorris’s tense and taut flashback storyline, casts a disquieting tone that’s very fitting for a film entitled “A Question of Silence.”  Dialogue, as well as the score and overall soundtracks, suffer very little from the slight hum of the running camera and some minor hissing but the general result has tremendous.  English subtitles are optional and synch well with error-free translation; however, upon watching the special features, the Cult Epics’ feature translations differ from the copious amount of snippet clips of the interview segments.  Roughly the same interpretation but the phrasing maybe clearer and less wordy in the snippets so I’d be interested in the, what I assume would be, the original English translation.  Special features include an audio commentary by film scholar Patricia Pisters, an archival Cinevise interview with Marleen Gorris from feature release year 1982, a sit-down, one-on-one interview with lead actress Cox Habbema and Cinevise host a year later, a Polygoon Journal Newsreel from ’82 that mentions the Golden Calf award from the Netherlands Film Festival, a promotional gallery, and trailers.  The clear Blu-ray cover comes with the tear-drenched and shadow-obscured face of Cox Hebbema with a reversible still image of the three accused women on the inside.  No insert included and the disc is pressed with the same front cover art.  Cult Epics Blu-ray comes with region free playback and the feature is 97-minutes and unrated.  Marleen Gorris first run as a filmmaker denotes her as a masterful storyteller with a timeless tale of close-quartered and subtle masculine tyranny in an attempt to open the unwilling eyes of the narrow focused. 

“A Question of Silence” Laughs Louder than Words on Blu-ray!