Grief gets a fantastical makeover in Johanneke Dihkstra and Menno Boersma's otherworldly Ritus.
Remember my last review? The one covering Le Temps des Adieux. It was a French coming of age film about grief. No? Oh ... okay then. Well, for the many of you who did not read it, I had mentioned that while death has varying interpretations (I'm quoting myself here), grief is a universal emotion that we all experience with death, but, even with it being universal, people grieve in their own way. The characters in Le Temps des Adieux kept the spirit of their loved ones alive in themselves, but ultimately let them go by film's end. Ritus, on the other hand, is about a person, who in his grief, decides to communicate with the spirit world to try …show more content…
In a series of close-ups (where Venema contorts his face into various expressions) that are stung together with flashy, quick cuts, we are immediately intimate with our subject. We see his grief, his anger, his loneliness and his resolve in his actions. Cut to a long shot and we see we are at a cemetery where Maarten is at the foot of a grave and Nando is far away from it. If that doesn't speak volumes in terms of character, I don't what else would. This is a film where there is minimal dialogue, but the editing (by Jan Martien Dekker and Tim Zweistra) and photography (by Wander Andringa) speak for it. Through cuts, framing, color and overall shot selection, Dihkstra and Boersma bring the father and son relationship to life and when there is a need for words, it allows the two actors to say the lines with gusto and emotion that can sometimes get lost in a "talky" screenplay. The performances by the two actors are all the more powerful because of the minimalism. Eelco Venema as Maarten and Henk Donselaar as Nando are beyond superb in their roles. At one point in the film, Maarten, having danced to the point of exhaustion, looks at his father, whom he suspects disapproves of his behavior, but there is more to the old man than meets the eye. With a few simple words ... well, you can't help but grin from ear to ear. The healing has
Remember my last review? The one covering Le Temps des Adieux. It was a French coming of age film about grief. No? Oh ... okay then. Well, for the many of you who did not read it, I had mentioned that while death has varying interpretations (I'm quoting myself here), grief is a universal emotion that we all experience with death, but, even with it being universal, people grieve in their own way. The characters in Le Temps des Adieux kept the spirit of their loved ones alive in themselves, but ultimately let them go by film's end. Ritus, on the other hand, is about a person, who in his grief, decides to communicate with the spirit world to try …show more content…
In a series of close-ups (where Venema contorts his face into various expressions) that are stung together with flashy, quick cuts, we are immediately intimate with our subject. We see his grief, his anger, his loneliness and his resolve in his actions. Cut to a long shot and we see we are at a cemetery where Maarten is at the foot of a grave and Nando is far away from it. If that doesn't speak volumes in terms of character, I don't what else would. This is a film where there is minimal dialogue, but the editing (by Jan Martien Dekker and Tim Zweistra) and photography (by Wander Andringa) speak for it. Through cuts, framing, color and overall shot selection, Dihkstra and Boersma bring the father and son relationship to life and when there is a need for words, it allows the two actors to say the lines with gusto and emotion that can sometimes get lost in a "talky" screenplay. The performances by the two actors are all the more powerful because of the minimalism. Eelco Venema as Maarten and Henk Donselaar as Nando are beyond superb in their roles. At one point in the film, Maarten, having danced to the point of exhaustion, looks at his father, whom he suspects disapproves of his behavior, but there is more to the old man than meets the eye. With a few simple words ... well, you can't help but grin from ear to ear. The healing has