Black Butterflies (2011)

Directed by: Paula van der Oest | 98 minutes | drama | Actors: Carice van Houten, Rutger Hauer, Liam Cunningham, Grant Swanby, Leon Clingman

It is not an easy thing to convey to the viewer in a film thoughts and fascinations for text and language – very important in the personality of a poetess. Rutger Hauer, who plays a small but essential role in Paula van der Oest’s ‘Black Butterflies’, tells this during a retrospective devoted to him in the film theater Lux in Nijmegen, which took place on 6 and 7 November 2010. Filmmaker van der Oest, however – fantastically helped by Carice van Houten – has succeeded very well in this. Of course you cannot avoid showing or performing Ingrid Jonker’s literal words – after all, her words and poems are an important part of her personality – but it never gets monotonous or dry. Sometimes we hear them in the form of a voice-over (by Van Houten) with images of waves crashing on the coast, then again we see fragments of the poems in Jonker’s room, and sometimes Jonker or someone close to her just reads them. yourself for. Once she writes her words with her fingers on condensed windows, which become as restless and elusive as Jonker himself often seemed to be. A beautiful scene.

There is a pivotal and heartbreaking scene in the film, which has everything to do with her poetry and poignantly shows that there is more to this than words on paper. That there is a sea of ​​emotions and thoughts underlying the words that touches the soul of the writer or writer. In the scene, Jonker tries to make contact with her father for the last time. She tries to wake him up, get emotion out of him, and make him share her deepest thoughts and concerns by having him read her poem “Die Kind” (about a child shot by soldiers). He agrees, but afterwards reacts anything but involved and turns his back on his daughter emotionally. In this scene Hauer, as Jonker’s father, should have gone even further than he does here, but he has refused to do so, on grounds of principle. The actor could not agree with the actions of this terrible man. Now Hauer has imagined more terrible men on the screen, but the fact that this man really existed made it unbearable for him. “’The Hitcher’ was child’s play compared to this man,” Hauer said during his speech in Lux. “After ‘The Hitcher’ I got funny questions like ‘Do you do that at home too?’ but this goes much further. This is a real monster and that’s why I had a really hard time with the film.” Probably Hauer’s personal struggle has only benefited the film, as his acting is great. His icy cold behavior towards his daughter, his sarcasm and cynicism, it is a strange pleasure to watch. His scenes with Carice van Houten in particular are irresistible, with a palpable field of tension – with a combination of melancholy and anger – between father and daughter.

A nice balance has been found in the tone of the film in relation to its subject: it is a tribute to Ingrid Jonker, but it is not a heroization. Jonker is not placed on a pedestal, without an eye for her possible sharp edges or difficult character traits. Her various (extramarital) relationships with older men, for example, and her sometimes erratic behavior are not ignored. A problem with this is that sometimes a lot of attention is paid to the (melo)dramatic aspects of her life, where the question of who does what with whom and whether real love and a family will come of it seem to take too much priority. to get. Of course this is all part of her life and the search for happiness (fleeting or permanent) is essential in everyone’s life, but in a film that already has a limited running time, a little more attention was paid to her thoughts about the world around her. , her commitment and the socio-political background have been welcome. It is of course quite possible that her search for a partner, love, a family, happiness, took up a lot of her thoughts, but it does not mean that division in Jonker’s life is also the best for the film. A certain distance now remains between the spectator and Jonker, which is perhaps unavoidable but perhaps could have been reduced somewhat. Yet ‘Black Butterflies’ is above all a fascinating and compelling drama, which only makes you more curious about Jonker and her work.

Although the film is a tribute to Ingrid Jonker, after seeing the film you almost feel called to pay tribute to the Dutch greats who show their skills here. You can enjoy the fireworks that Hauer and van Houten create here for a long time to come. Van Houten does not have the slightest films and roles to her name, but continues to amaze with her experienced interpretations. In the role of Ingrid Jonker she knows how to enchant the viewer with a smile, she makes his heart break with an emotional outburst or a lost gaze, and lets him think along with her during her introverted moments. And her language skills are getting better and better. She seems to be comfortable in English (and Afrikaans) and is therefore very convincing in this language. There is really nothing left to stand in the way of an international career.

But as beautiful as the acting can be, it is of course not about the egos of the actors, but about the characters, and in this case about Ingrid Jonker, who must be portrayed authentically and convincingly in a film that does justice to her personality and life. . And Paula van der Oest has succeeded well in this. The filmmaker has created a beautiful, contemplative film about a great poet and an intensely feeling person who has not been able to find ultimate happiness, but has hopefully touched and inspired many others with her work. Nelson Mandela is certainly one of these. Reason enough, you might say, to satisfy Jonker.