Camiel, a dirty unkempt man, arrives at the doorstep of Marina and Richard's beautiful home asking to take a shower. He is immediately greeted with violence by Richard, being thrown off the property. Marina, appalled by her husbands behavior, invites Camiel into their home for a bath. This invitation is just the beginning of a series of unsettling events that slowly destroys the facade of this wealthy and happy family, their three children, and the family nanny. Alex Van Warmerdam's Borgman is a film that borrows heavily from Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema in creating an uneasy portrait of a family that slowly tears itself apart. This is a film that lives and dies with its ability to intrigue, but unfortunately the film never really has much to say at all. There really is no major theme or point to this movie, except in making a oeculiar film. Thanks to the opening sequence which finds Camiel being hunted down by a Priest and his companions, the audience has a pretty good idea that Camiel is something demonic, possibly the devil himself. This opening sequence really killed some of the intrigue for me and it's completely unneccessary, giving the viewer too much information about Camiel early on. While Teorema is subtle and incredibly brooding, Borgman's applies a lighter tone with much more comedic moments sprinkled around the monstrosities. It's similar to Dogtooth in that way, putting a lot of energy and attention into being offbeat. The disintegration around Marina and Richard's relationship is certainly the high point of the film, with Warmerdam establishing the relationship dynamics between these two even before Camiel begins to have his way with them. Alex Van Warmerdam's Borgman is not a bad film by any stretch but it feels like an unnecessary one given Pasolini's Teorema similiar intentions. 6/10
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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