For My Baby – Goodnight Vienna (1997)

Directed by: Rudolf van den Berg | 102 minutes | drama | Actors: Alan Cumming, Juliet Aubrey, Frank Finlay, Elizabeth Spriggs, Serena Gordon, Hédi Temessy, Timothy Bateson, Clive Russell, Cyril Shaps, Michael Cronin, Sammy O’Grady

Until the mid-eighties, Dutch filmmaker Rudolf van den Berg, a political scientist who graduated, mainly focused on making documentaries. He did not without merit, as witnessed by his victory at the Dutch Film Festival in 1982, where his documentary ‘Sal Santen Rebel’ was awarded a Golden Calf. Two years later it was another hit for Van den Berg; his feature debut ‘Bastille’ (1984) – based on a novel by Leon de Winter – made such a crushing impression that he was again awarded a Golden Calf. Success followed each other in rapid succession. Van den Berg made the book adaptations ‘Search for Eileen’ (1987) and ‘De Avonden’ (1989), scored an international cult hit with the horror film ‘De Johnsons’ (1992) and directed the thriller ‘The Cold Light of Day’. (1994), based on a novella by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. However, like so many film makers in the Netherlands, Van den Berg found it increasingly difficult to raise money from the film fund. Out of dissatisfaction, he therefore moved to the US in the late 1990s.

Shortly before his departure to Hollywood, the director made the baroque drama ‘For My Baby’ (1997), about the aftermath of the Holocaust. Scottish actor Alan Cumming plays Daniël Orgelbrand, a Viennese stand-up comedian of Jewish descent. His family is burdened by the drama of the Holocaust. His sister Hannah, who actually never knew Daniel, was killed. His father Joshua (Cyril Shaps) teams up with his old friend Max (Timothy Bateson) to track down war criminals and bring them to justice. His mother Martha (Hédi Temessy) has never been able to cope with the loss of her daughter and has ended up in a home, where she spends her days as a greenhouse plant. To accommodate his mother – who has always rejected him – Daniel dresses up as Hannah when he visits her. He also does this to appease his own guilt, which regularly keeps him from sleeping. One day he meets the naive American Lilian (Juliet Aubrey), who has come to Vienna to pursue a career as an opera singer. The two fall in love and luck finally seems to smile on Daniel. He decides to deal with his ‘alter ego’ Hannah for good. But leaving his past behind is not as easy as he thought. Especially not when Lilian discovers that her father, from whom she had been estranged for years, turns out to be an old Nazi.|

‘For My Baby’ (international title ‘Goodnight Vienna’) premiered during the Netherlands Film Festival of 1997, where Van den Berg received his third Golden Calf. Still, it took almost three years before the print hit the Dutch screens. Money problems and mutual disagreements between distributors, director and producers were at the root of this. In addition, the film was soon labeled ‘controversial’, which prompted some interested distributors to drop out. Van den Berg only found a suitable publisher after almost three years and in 2000 the film could finally hit the screens. Was this movie really worth all that tug-of-war? Not really. Although the print is ambitious in design and the theme is interesting, Van den Berg regularly goes overboard with excessive drama and screaming. He goes too far, especially towards the end. According to the director, ‘For My Baby’ not only tells the story of the aftermath of the Second World War on the Jewish population, but you can extend the theme much broader. “The message is that if you bury your head in the sand, you will suffocate. The main character does not want to know anything about the past, which breaks him. That is a universal insight that everyone can understand,” he says in an interview with Filmkrant.

Van den Berg is absolutely right about that. But the way he has worked this out will not strike the right chord with everyone. The director uses pompous melodrama and also lets the film swing back and forth between different genres; drama, romance and even a touch of occultism (witness the ghosts of the past that regularly resurface). A mix of different genres can work, but then there has to be a balance and that is sadly lacking in ‘For My Baby’. The acting is pretty decent across the board. The somewhat effeminate-looking Alan Cumming (‘Eyes Wide Shut’, 1999) is a logical choice for the role of the schizophrenic Daniel; don’t be surprised that he puts on women’s clothes every now and then. Moreover, the grotesque drama surrounding his character is also devoted to him. It’s just very hard to empathize with him, no matter how hard Cumming tries. Daniel Orgelbrand is such an unsympathetic and self-righteous subject that you don’t really care what happens to him. And that must not have been Van den Berg’s intention. The larger-than-life figure of Orgelbrand, combined with the heavy music of Bob Zimmerman (not to be confused with Robert Zimmermann, alias Bob Dylan!) is a bit too much… There is not much to do with the excellent camera work of Hungarian Gábor Szabó to notice.

For Van den Berg, ‘For My Baby’ is a film about accepting comfort, which is mainly expressed in the difficult relationship between Daniel and his mother. “You can’t force someone to love you,” says Van den Berg. A beautiful theme that undoubtedly comes straight from the heart of the director, but in the elaboration he misses the point. You may like it, heavy themes such as life, death, love and guilt that almost suffocate you in a lavish sauce of baroque drama. ‘For My Baby’ is a film that could have been deeply moving, if only it had been a little lighter. Now all sincere emotion is unfortunately hidden under a large placard of theatrical ridiculousness.