My Foolish Heart (2018)

Directed by: Rolf van Eijk | 83 minutes | drama | Actors: Gijs Naber, Raymond Thiry, Steve Wal, Sam Louwyck, Tibo Vandenborre, Paloma Aguilera Valdebenito, Antony Acheampong, Genelva Krind, Horace Cohen, Lynsey Beauchamp, Arjan Ederveen, Medina Schuurman, Michael Schnörr, Ko van den Bosch, Luca Simonelli, Rob Scholte

A biopic about musicians is always a tricky business. Will it be a collage of the work, illustrating a life, or… Well, is there actually another method? When it comes to a musician like Chet Baker (1929-1988) there is enough juicy material to be found, such as self-destruction and a musician’s death (mysterious fall from a window). The last event took place in the Red Light District, and fits in well with the image of that neighborhood at the time. The heroin trade was thriving and the jazz trumpeter said he had been using the drug for thirty years.

Not surprising that the enigmatic events at the end of Baker’s life were filmed by a Dutchman. Rolf van Eyck found a number of character actors in his path (including Gijs Naber, Raymond Thiry, Sam Louwyck), as well as an excellent cameraman (Martijn van Broekhuizen). ‘My Foolish Heart’ is soft on the form, and hard on the substance. Baker turns out to be a self-hating woman abuser in this film. And remarkably enough, Steve Wall’s successful make-up is responsible for the fact that it is difficult for a viewer to bond with him.

That seems to be a conscious choice anyway, with the almost Lynch-like staging and soundtrack. Van Eyck takes the viewer along in the distant way in which Baker dealt with his surroundings, and allows the viewer to enjoy the debauchery that often takes place on the other side of a wall through the eyes and ears of band members. Now it’s noises from intercourse, then screams of abused women like Sarah (Lynsey Beauchamp) and Lois (Paloma Aguilera Valdebonito).

The detective element (Naber plays an inspector investigating Baker’s death) is secondary, because there is not enough to find. Baker fell from the second floor, heroin and cocaine were found in his room and natural death has always remained the official reading. The film noir-like feeling therefore remains a sauce – a smoke better, culminating in a final scene in which Naber looks through the offending window at a corpse he himself is sitting next to. The Warmoesstraat is clearly not a Lost Highway.