Review: Swimming paradise (2009) Zwemparadijs (Original title)

Director: Lodewijk Crijns | 10 minutes | short film | Actors: Marieke Lindhout, Sem de Vlieger

With ‘Swimming paradise’, director Lodewijk Crijns seems to mainly want to hold up a mirror to us. It’s amazing how the filmmakers managed to describe and capture those typically annoying swimming pool situations. Just like in many amusement parks, fairgrounds or other public events, it seems to be mainly the (young) adults who behave like children, instead of the children themselves. Like some other great filmmakers (Michiel van Erp, Bert Haanstra), it is also Crijns who makes us understand our behavior with a subtle reflection. Crijns, who of course works very differently, casts these typically Dutch situations into a short feature, seen from the eyes of two young girls.

Swim Paradise contains annoyingly entertaining scenes because they are more than recognizable. And then the typecasting; the extras and actors in ‘Zwemparadijs’ are those typical figures that you expect in such a swimming pool. As if they haven’t been gone since your last visit to the tropical pool. Take the busty overweight boy or the tanning bed colored bodybuilder: humor and reality go hand in hand. Crijns seems to be looking for that recognizable reality. During his studies he made the film ‘Kutzooi’ in which fiction and documentary were closely linked. This earned him a selection place for the International Film Festival Rotterdam. In 2001 Crijns and Kim van Kooten won a Golden Calf for the Best Screenplay for the film ‘With great joy’.

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