Two Women – Twice a Woman (1979)

Directed by: George Sluizer | 108 minutes | drama, romance | Actors: Bibi Andersson, Sandra Dumas, Anthony Perkins, Charles Gormley, Gregor Frenkel Frank, Kitty Courbois, Hans Veerman, Tilly Perin-Bouwmeester, Astrid Weyman, Adrian Brine, Arnold Gelderman, Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Joop Admiraal, Walter van Canoy, Tim Beekman

In the Images for the Future project, the Film Museum, the Association of Public Libraries, Image and Sound, the National Archives, the Central Discotheek Rotterdam and Kennisland are working together to save and make available the Dutch audiovisual heritage. In other words: people restore and digitize everything in order to preserve it for future generations, after all: film negatives have far from eternal life. The first film saved as part of this major cultural operation is George Sluizer’s ‘Two Women’ (1979), based on Harry Mulisch’s book of the same name.

It is no coincidence that Sluizer’s film is the first. The film will be released during the third edition of the national campaign Nederland Leest, in which a lot of attention is paid to the same Harry Mulisch. Now that this film has been restored and digitized, there are still about a thousand hours of film by others waiting for restoration and more than 40,000 for digitization. So plenty to do! After seeing the film, it is absolutely clear that ‘Two Women’ is more than ‘just’ a digitization: the image quality is excellent and if you didn’t know it probably didn’t occur to you that he was almost thirty years ago. is made. The colors are bright and fresh, as if from this time. In addition, the used interiors could come from this time, wide trouser legs and seventies haircuts can easily be measured and old-timers (a nice old Citroën GS, or a VW Beetle) can be rented, so you can’t tell the age of the movie. Only when characters go outside and you recognize the old Dam (Amsterdam) and the Kalverstraat, with shops that are no longer there and you see the building of the Amsterdam Rotterdam Bank (nowadays ABN/AMRO) to the right of the Dam, you know for sure This movie was actually shot at that time.

More importantly, though, the story isn’t dated. The lyrics are sharp and make you think about the ever-recognisable themes, such as the pain of love and the battle between the sexes. The plot is subtly woven together, with nice lines to the past and how things come back. Acting is in principle okay, but sometimes a bit wooden. The latter has to do with the hideous choice to have all the dialogues of this Dutch story conducted in English, while the actors, except for Anthony Perkins, are not native speakers, which makes things just a bit more difficult. English would be better for the international market. But yes, he already had trouble with the (typically Dutch) controversial subject. Because of that controversy, director Sluizer was unable to get a great American actress like Jane Fonda for the lead role. It was feared that this role would damage the career. That was not enough for the young Sandra Dumas (in the role of Sylvia). Sluizer found her in the pub and dragged her in front of the camera. She didn’t do many big roles after that. Not because no one wanted her, on the contrary, no, she didn’t want to. Her obstinate character, which she also showed on the set – she did everything exactly as she wanted – greatly benefits her role. As an impressive, Lolita-like, self-assured young woman, she makes the blood flow faster in (older) men and women.

The now seventy-six year old Sluizer, who broke through internationally with ‘Spoorloos’ (1988) and the American remake ‘The Vanishing’ (1993), has nothing to be ashamed of. The fact that the controversy surrounding homosexuality in films is no longer so great (witness the great success of ‘Brokeback Mountain’; 2005), does not detract from the fascinating content of the story of this film from 1979, thanks to the universal theme and solid directing.’ Two women’ may be seen (again).