The Polish Bride (1998)

Directed by: Karim Traidia | 90 minutes | drama, romance | Actors: Jaap Spijkers, Monic Hendrickx, Rudi Falkenhagen, Roef Ragas, Hakim Traïdia, Soraya Traïdia

That’s how grandpa and grandma did it: you looked each other in the eye, you were silent for a while and you knew enough. ‘The Polish Bride’ is an ode to rural life as it is currently disappearing. Silent people, people who keep silent because it’s all right. Less is more, even if it seems too little.

‘The Polish Bride’ starts almost biblically. As if sent by God, the fleeing Anna, bloodied, falls down in Henk Woldring’s yard, like a lamb of God, a foundling, the baby Jesus. Henk showers her and puts her to bed, with the natural care of a farmer for his animals. Anna seems to seek protection and weighs her interests against each other, until she knows that she has to seduce the rock-solid but simple Henk herself (subtle play by Monic Hendrickx).

‘The Polish Bride’ may well be a quintessentially Dutch film in the sense of endless horizons, eating behavior and alacrity of artistic fuss, but where the Netherlands in Alex van Warmerdam’s films, for example, is only the backdrop of a surrealistic world, it is an essential part here. of the theme: the slow love of Henk and Anna. She flees from the hectic and uncertainty of the whore’s life into the country, into the yard, behind the back of a man who will never leave his native soil. It is also interesting to link that to an immigrant woman. Without falling into multicultural cheer, it can be said here that fate brings two people together who would otherwise never meet.

Still, we have to be strict with this film. Low-budget or not, the two thugs Falkenhagen and Ragas, who play Anna’s shady employers, are really way below par. They suddenly appear on the scene, how they know that Anna is staying in the farm is a mystery and then they don’t even bother to approach her. On the other hand, they threaten Henk, with Falkenhagen as Linke Loetje and Ragas as alderman Hekking. More attention to detail would have been appropriate here, because averting imminent danger is essential in Henk and Anna’s rapprochement; It’s a shame to be so careless about it now. The ending is also not entirely in line with the lingering character of the film, but the love theme remains, especially by Spijkers and Hendrickx.