Among Us (2011)

Directed by: Marco van Geffen | 85 minutes | drama | Actors: Dagmara Bak, Natalia Rybicka, Rifka Lodeizen, Guy Clemens, Reinout Bussemaker

It is a somewhat gloomy day, we see a characteristic Dutch picture with a lake. The camera glides over the water and then swings along the bank and the reeds: the atmospheric image evoked indicates disaster. It will soon become clear through a news broadcast on TV that the town is more or less under the spell of a serial rapist.

The story of ‘Onder ons’ is told from three perspectives. The methodology is applied here that certain scenes recur several times, but that the events or the position of characters then suddenly become (differently) explained because the perspective of the events in a different context, that of the other person in the story, is then changed. to stand.

In the part ‘Peter and Ilse’ the events are seen through the eyes of Peter (Guy Clemens) and Ilse (Rifka Lodeizen). They are the parents of a baby. Because Ilse is pregnant again, they take in the young Polish au pair Ewa (Dagmara Bak) to take care of the baby. In part II, the situation is seen through the eyes of Aga (Natalia Rybicka), another Polish au pair who works for another family and who befriends Ewa. In fact, only the father Peter (Reinout Bussemaker) of that family makes an emphatic return in the story. Part III is told from Ewa’s own experiences.

Ewa turns out to be a shy and introverted young girl, for the first time abroad. Ewa especially misses her sister very much. She is withdrawn, and talks little with only the much-needed answers. Ilse tries to get in touch with her but gets a bit desperate. Peter optimistically dismisses all objections because Ewa gets along very well with the baby. Ewa meets Aga, they become friends, but they are opposites in everything. Aga is outgoing, knows exactly what she wants, blurts out all kinds of things, is a party animal and flirts happily. She wants to get the most out of life. When she visits Aga, she meets Anton, the father of that family. As always, Aga plays her own frivolous game and Anton is amused as she challenges him a bit in the process.

Anton is quite free and feels attracted to the young Ewa. However, she becomes frightened when he approaches her more and more. Without any evidence, Ewa begins to develop the idea that Anton might be the rapist. She has serious doubts and cannot and dares not tell anyone her unfounded thoughts. She becomes more and more closed off. Her isolation becomes complete when she breaks her friendship with Aga. Then she decides in a dramatic attempt to lure Anton out of his tent. She visits him late at night after work, accepts his invitation to take a ride and offers him, as it were, the opportunity on a silver platter. If nothing happened, she would be freed from her suspicions and doubts. The consequences of her action are, of course, not given away here, but that there will be, need not be obscured.

‘Among us’ is edited ‘quickly’ and has many relatively short scenes. The storyline is fragmentary and jumps a bit from scratch. At the same time, it ripples along at a number of moments and the symbolism is sometimes a bit thick. How likely is it that an introverted and shy and actually completely inexperienced girl offers herself to find out if she might be raped?

The game is adequate, but within the scenario the actors are given little opportunity to explore the characters of their characters in depth. At the end, the plot goes a little crazy, so that the credibility of the course of things is slightly jeopardized without flying out of the corner.

‘Among us’ is director Marco van Geffen’s feature film debut and was selected for the 64th Locarno International Film Festival (and competes for the Golden Leopards). The film will also be screened at the Dutch Film Festival 2011. The chosen locations are beautiful, the camerawork is stunning. Although this debut does not immediately have to be called a masterpiece (the intensity of the drama is still too much lacking for that), the interesting set-up of the scenario makes us sufficiently curious about the upcoming parts of this trilogy.