Tillema (2002)

Directed by: Herman de Boer | 52 minutes | documentary

Photographer and actor Thom Hoffman shows a glimpse of the extensive archive of Hendrik Tillema in the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden. It contains the countless letters, photographs and publications of an exceptional man. Born in the Frisian village of Echten, he left for the Dutch East Indies in 1896 to pursue a career there. In Semarang he first works as a salaried pharmacist, but in the near future he will buy up the pharmacy. However, the pharmacy is adjacent to an old bottling plant and he decides to modernize it. After many setbacks, he manages to bottle table water with carbon dioxide and without the unpleasant aftertaste of iodine. Thanks to a sophisticated advertising strategy, he draws a disproportionate amount of attention to his product, for example by having a hot air balloon hover over the city. He then uses his publicity genius to promote the poor living conditions of the natives in the kampongs. As one of the few whites, he has an eye for the downside of colonial society with a camera at the ready and he also uses his pen to fight against social abuses. Like Multatuli, he does not wish to look the other way, but to do what is within his power to end the injustice.

The extensively shown historical footage makes this documentary special. Tillema’s images make it mercilessly clear that if the Europeans had wanted to see the abuses, this could easily have been done. A step outside the luxury car during a drive would have been enough to witness, like Tillema, the shabby huts, the life-threatening lack of hygiene and the harrowing consequences. Only the terrible stench he could not capture in images, but he mentioned it in the photo captions. The documentary is not a hagiography, but it does force one to admire Tillema’s courage to deliver an unpleasant message, illustrated with his confrontational photos. Something his compatriots were certainly not waiting for.