click to enlarge - Courtesy of VTIFF
- Jan Bijvoet as the title character in Borgman
The award-winning 2013 Dutch film
Borgman, about a mysterious stranger who enters the lives of an upper-class family, will screen at Burlington's
Main Street Landing Film House next week. The screening, organized by the
Vermont International Film Foundation, is a Vermont theatrical exclusive.
The film was nominated for the 2013 AFI Festival Grand Jury Prize, and director Alex van Warmerdam won the Best Director award at last year's Athens International Film Festival.
The film's title character, Camiel Borgman, will perhaps remind American audiences of the Nick Nolte character from Paul Mazursky's 1986 comedy
Down and Out in Beverly Hills, another cultural satire about an oddly compelling vagrant who insinuates himself into the lives of the well-to-do. (Die-hard cinephiles may recall, too, Jean Renoir's marvelous 1932 comedy
Boudu Saved From Drowning, of which
Down and Out in Beverly Hills is a remake.) These films may have similar stories, but
Borgman has attracted much critical attention for its stylized mise-en-scène, as well — as evidenced by the striking composition above. And this film has a much darker edge.
Check out the trailer below for a sample of the film, which uses a fable-like structure to explore the nature of evil.
Borgman
screens Thursday, August 28, at 7 p.m., at the Main Street Landing Film House in Burlington. Free for VTIFF members / $8 general admission / $5 student. Purchase tickets online.