The Other (2009)

Directed by: Rolf van Eijk | 40 minutes | drama, short film | Actors: Walid Taher, Alex Blokker, Berivan Hosiyar, Jonna Zwetsloot, Dan van Steen, Ingrid Weissgerber, Boumadian Jaghi, Paul van der Laan, Oscar Haffmans, Elisa van Riessen

‘The Other’ opens and ends with the voice over by Noraly Beyer. At the beginning of the film she tells on the news that the war in Iraq has started and at the end we hear her say that the Dutch involvement in the war is now even more controversial, because no nuclear weapons have been found in Iraq. However, the filmmakers not only make a clear statement with this conclusion, the storyline of the Dutch boy Perry, which we follow on the eve before he is sent to Iraq, also speaks volumes. Based on the majority of the playing time, Perry would get a big “unfit” if ‘The Other’ were a recruiting commercial for the army. Strikingly enough, a soldier who is on the eve of his deployment to the Middle East in ‘Den Helder’, one of the One Night Stand films of 2008, was also the subject.

We follow three people who meet each other consciously or unconsciously during the film. Aziz is a man in his forties. He has fled Iraq and is trying to make contact with his family who stayed behind. The young girl Nazanin also strolls through the port area of ​​Rotterdam. Her family is from Iran, but she grew up in the Netherlands. Of all the characters, she comes out least well: she seems to have run away, but does have contact with her father. It is not clear what drives her. Nazanin hitchhike a bit with a truck driver. He tries to start a conversation, she keeps looking sullen or snaps at him (“What does it matter where I come from?”). Perry, too, is surly, berating his mother, who was prepared to enjoy her son’s presence on the last evening. For a moment he is nice to his girlfriend, with whom he goes for a ride, but later she also has to pay. Nazanin and Aziz are the first to meet, then Aziz encounters Perry at a gas station. And those are disturbing images.

No fewer than four films by the Kurdish-Dutch filmmaker Beri Shalmashi were screened during the Netherlands Film Festival in 2009, although she did not direct all four. She wrote the screenplay for ‘The Other’, made as part of the fourth edition of One Night Stand, and left the direction to Rolf van Eijk, who previously made ‘Hemel Boven Holland’, a film about Mohammed B. Two committed film makers at the helm, that must result in a socially critical film. The subject also offers all possibilities for this. And partly it works well, yet the characters remain flat and it is not really possible to connect with the audience. The cinematography is also fine, and the music is not to be faulted either. And the three lead actors are also good at acting. This provides enough atmosphere in ‘The Other’, but unfortunately there is no involvement.