New Tiengemeten (2010)

Directed by: Digna Sinke | 53 minutes | documentary

The premise of the Tiengemeten project by director Digna Sinke seems deceptively simple. When it was announced in 1993 that a small island in the Haringvliet, Tiengemeten, would be converted from a small farming community into a nature reserve from 1998, Sinke decided to make a documentary about the planned return to nature. This immediately creates expectations for a film filled with serene, silent images of a slowly deteriorating landscape, with the occasional lost hiker who is swallowed up in it; visual reflections on the ‘naturalization’ of Tiengemeten as an ironic commentary on the otherwise unapproachable propelling modernity, or if necessary a striking counter-movement to it.

Those nature shots are ultimately quite numerous, but otherwise these expectations are barely realised. It has become a series of four documentaries, which have been collected in a joint DVD box. These are mainly filled with almost endless order: not only in the form of the orderly rows of trees that continue to form the landscape despite all ambitions, but especially also in the official mill through which the ambitious project has to be dragged. There have been hundreds of meetings over the years, perhaps showing more talking policymakers in dusty offices than rustic pastures. The entire policy project at Tiengemeten eventually takes eleven years to near completion and that the last film about it, ‘Weemoed & Wildernis’, would only be released in 2010 – nine years after the first film.

In January 2006, when the third film, ‘Nieuw Tiengemeten’, starts, an arrangement has finally been made with the last remaining family, they move and the naturalization of Tiengemeten can start – after eight years of squabbles. Furthermore, ‘Nieuw Tiengemeten’ shows how these plans can be implemented and how nature can be introduced on Tiengemeten. As far as one may speak of free nature: literally every tree, dune and shrub is laid down in policy plans, whereby only a part of the island, called ‘wilderness’, gives the illusion of a nature reserve that is not regulated too much. The rest of the island will be filled with relaxation centers for people with mental disorders, school gardens for a Rotterdam college, and perhaps also luxury apartments. Ironically, when the island was knocked over, the fallen poplar died when its roots were pulled along when a dike was being dug. It leaves behind a barren, desolate landscape, where vegetation is sparse.

Despite this, the island will be delivered as completed in 2007. At that moment there is not much going on yet, that will come later when the vegetation has started to get going. With that, in the summer at least, the visitors also come. They can enjoy wide, orderly walking paths, a carefully chosen lookout and carefully tended pastures. It looks more like a large city park that has fallen apart than the wild, free nature that initially seemed the intention. Although this documentary in itself offers enough intriguing viewing material, the entire series of films about Tiengemeten is so much more than the sum of its parts that it is advisable to watch them all and consider them as a coherent work of art. ‘Nieuw Tiengemeten’ is a fascinating portrait of bureaucratic ambition (and perhaps hubris) and the agricultural society of Tiengemeten, but it is not more than one part, and those who are interested would do better to view the entire series.