Island guests (2005)

Directed by: Karim Traidia | 100 minutes | drama | Actors: Tygo Gernandt, Eva Duijvestein, Jaap Spijkers, Marieke Heebink, Caro Lenssen, Carine Crutzen, Egbert Jan Weeber, Loes Haverkort, Johnny de Mol, Pim Lambeau

Director Karim Traïda surprised the visitors of the Netherlands Film Festival in 1998 with the wonderful ‘The Polish Bride’. Traïda received a Golden Calf for Best Direction and Monic Hendrickx won that for Best Actress. ‘The Polish Bride’ was absolutely perfect, every shot captured the moods and personalities of the main characters and not a word was said too much. Unfortunately, in Traida’s latest film ‘Island guests’, things are a bit different.

‘Eilandgasten’ is based on the novel of the same name by Vonne van der Meer and consists of five stories packed into one. Now Traida is doing his best to connect all the characters together. For example, characters from different storylines can regularly be seen in one shot. This is not terribly complicated, as they are temporary neighbors in their holiday homes and will therefore inevitably end up in the same picture. Another way in which the storylines are tied together is because the characters in ‘the guest book’, which their old hostess has prepared for them, can read each other’s holiday messages. These expurgated words give them a different picture of each other than what we have been able to see. However, this psychological fact is treated rather loosely, so not every character reads about every other character and they do not draw any conclusions from this. This way the different storylines remain separate stories.

Many well-known actors have lent themselves to ‘Island Guests’ and the acting is generally very nice. Jaap Spijkers is in his element as a grumpy father, his family (with two curly children) is well cast. Tygo Gernandt and Eva Duijvestein make a less credible couple, but that could also be due to the not too strong dialogues. The character Dana is irritating because she keeps asking the same questions, making you sympathize with her husband Chiel, while he is cheating! Egbert Jan Weeber presents his character a bit more tragically than is strictly necessary, while Johnny de Mol does not come across as ‘shy’ as indicated in the summary. Yet it is the actors who make this film bearable.

In addition to the weak dialogues, the camera use is also regularly disturbing. It happens more than once that a large piece of jacket or sweater is quite ostentatious in the picture, which is distracting to say the least. It’s not that bad if you’re distracted for a while, because the pace of ‘Island guests’ is on the slow side. She seems to be taking longer than her actual height.

In short, ‘Island guests’ is disappointing after Traïda’s strong ‘Polish Bride’. This comparison may be a bit unfair, but one can expect a novel adaptation to add something to the reading experience. However, the psychological depth is hard to find and visually the lack of tension is not made up for. In the case of ‘Island guests’ you better read the book.