Highway NL (2019)

Directed by: Ben van Lieshout | 91 minutes | documentary

‘Snelweg NL’ is a photographically strong road movie. The latter should be interpreted a bit broadly. We get to see carefully framed close-ups of Dutch highway life. From a spider’s web on the bridge keeper’s house of the Merwedebrug near Gorinchem to a commercial-sharp section of a gas station along the A1 near Muiden. Constant factor: the noise in the background.

All Dutch people with a car addiction, and there are many, can identify with the images. Showing the back of our commuter life, actually this is good work. The highway is an inexhaustible source, from makeshift cooking truck drivers at a resting place to a graffiti portrait of Beatrix on a concrete pillar: you’ve seen it once, watch it in silence and forget it again. Just like in this film, which turns you into a detached motorist for the time being, if you weren’t already.

The highway offers a form of energy that is fleeting but also makes you a little happy. That is, if it continues to drive, and you are spared accidents. But also in ‘ Highway NL ‘ it sometimes comes to a standstill. The many screens in the control room of Rijkswaterstaat’s traffic control center show that behind the functioning of the highway hides an impressive device that tries to wipe away the misery of scissored trucks and stranded cars with a Dutch phlegm.

This documentary by Ben van Lieshout breathes love for the professionals of the road. After an hour and a half of ‘Snelweg NL’, however, you are done with the Dutch highway. Then you’ve seen enough stormy weather with Burger King cups blowing, heard trucks idling and seen rows of lights. Then you long for your own cozy car again, and the perpetuum of the CD player that drowns out the superficial noise of the highway. Looking for a piece of home in a detached world. Repetition dulls, just like real highway life.