Hersenschimmen (“Mind Shadows”) does not provide its audience with any easy escape. The whole film is dedicated to portraying the twilight years of Maarten and Vera Klein, an elderly Dutch couple living in a small Nova Scotia community. Maarten develops Alzheimer’s disease — a mental affliction that causes premature senility — and his wife Vera (Marja Kok) has to take care of him and learn to cope with the strain and difficulties that enter their life. Despite some problems in the film’s construction, the sheer power of this material forces its viewers into stark confrontation with human mortality. Joop Admiraal, who plays Maarten and whose mother in real life suffers from the disease, gives a performance that is the bedrock anchor of the film’s success. He brings home the full impact of Alzheimer’s disease on an aging brain, drawing the viewer into Maarten’s world with all its mental non sequiturs and discontinuities. He also convincingly portrays a spectrum of symptoms that range from Maarten’s incipient absentmindedness to his paranoid tendencies. The performances of the other actors, however, range from the merely adequate to downright problematic. On the one hand, Marja Kok’s portrayal of Vera (Maarten’s wife) is good enough to hint at the sad and difficult direction her life has taken. On the other hand, Rick Collins’ role as the owner of a bookstore calls for him to be onscreen for only a few moments, but those moments are awkward. Perhaps these lapses can be ascribed to elements of regional filmmaking that pop up from time to time in the film.
File Name : Hersenschimmen 1988.mkv
File Size : 1.54 GB / 1576.96 MB
Resolution : 720×480
Duration : 01:48:20
Quality: DVDRip
Language: Dutch
Subs: English, Dutch, Spanish (embedded)
Genre: Drama
