Tiengemeten 2001-2006 (2006)

Directed by: Digna Sinke | 80 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, with the result that the last film about this, ‘Weemoed & Wildernis’, would only be released in 2010 – nine years after the first film.

At the end of the first part of the series of films, ‘Tiengemeten Deel 1’ (2001), there was a development plan and most of the original inhabitants, mainly agricultural families, moved off the island, but it had not yet been possible to get every farmer on board. to offer the island a preferable alternative. However, the first piece of free nature had already been created: a poplar was blown over during a storm, which remains and continues to live in that position.

In part two of the documentary series, ‘Tiengemeten 2001 – 2006’ (2007), this poplar is still there, but the tree is not the only thing that continues to live on the island. The last two farmers, the brothers Leen and Klaas Vos, are not satisfied with the offer they received and are happy to continue farming on Tiengemeten. And despite all the policy plans, the grand plans cannot be started as long as the Vos brothers still live on the island.

The stalemate doesn’t bother Sinke, and she uses much of her second documentary to focus on both the landscape and its inhabitants. As a viewer, you notice that recurring characters such as the down-to-earth, stoic Vos family and the ever well-informed ferryman thaw in the sight of Sinke and her camera, and that a certain bond of trust develops over the years. The fact that you can grow with it by watching this DVD box makes the series even more worth watching.

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. ‘Tiengemeten 2001 – 2006’ 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.