Housewitz (2021)

Directed by: Oeke Hoogendijk | 69 minutes | documentary

Lous Hoogendijk-de Jong is the mother of Oeke Hoogendijk, filmmaker, known for ‘The new Rijksmuseum’ (2013) and ‘My Rembrandt’ (2019) among others. Lous, born in 1926, experienced the Second World War up close. Due to the horrors of the war – the De Jong family was severely affected by the Holocaust – the young woman suffered a trauma that will have an impact well into the twenty-first century. Lous lives with a cat in a terraced house. Her bed is in the living room, she has everything within reach. Lous no longer comes up and no longer goes outside. She has a street phobia, she is only safe within the four walls of her house. With ‘Housewitz’ daughter Oeke – with recordings that lasted about fifteen years – sketches a warm, loving and honest portrait of a mother out of thousands.

We get to know Lous as a somewhat eccentric, stubborn lady, who, despite her phobia and therefore limited view of the world, seems to be very well aware of everything that goes on there. She is digitally skilled. She ‘travels’ through various countries, because of her obsession with the TV program Die schönste Bahnstrecken and when Oeke ends her documentary with an almost hypnotic fragment of a train through a snowy mountain landscape, her fascination with these images is easy to understand. Oeke tries to lure her mother out of the tent, letters were written during the Second World War, where are they? It’s a sensitive subject; Decades later, Lous still can’t talk about the events without getting full.

Lous is fully aware of why she is the subject of her daughter’s documentary and has her own vision of it. She gives directions, advises Oeke to install webcams in order to observe her in her daily worries and it is as if she forgets that a camera is pointed at her (the ‘cunt with pears’ is sometimes not the right thing to do). sky). ‘Housewitz’ is funny and moving: especially Lous’ view on life is beautiful; she visibly enjoys the little things in life. But there is also a lot of sadness behind each fragment: are you first moved by her almost childlike joy when her children come to place a real Christmas tree, then the shivers run down your body when you hear why Lous has decided not to celebrate Christmas without a tree anymore .

In a house where Marie Kondo would lick her fingers, Lous has been living her life for years. Even when the newborn Oeke was fighting for her life in a hospital, she didn’t come out. That special mother-child relationship is also discussed briefly, and the fact that it occasionally rubs off is not swept under the rug. ‘Housewitz’ is about a war that leaves a mark on an almost grown woman, who then leaves her mark on her family (Oeke’s father left the family when she was three) and that for decades. Despite that, Oeke is in control herself – she finished her film when her mother passed away in 2020. You will not soon forget the gripping ‘Housewitz’ and the striking protagonist