42. Het Dorp &...

Lyrics

Thuis heb ik nog een ansichtkaart

(I still have a postcard at home)
Waarop een kerk een kar met paard

(With on it a church and horse carriage)
Een slagerij J. van der Ven

(A butchery J. van der Ven)
Een kroeg, een juffrouw op de fiets

(A tavern, a lady on a bike)
Het zegt u hoogstwaarschijnlijk niets

(It most probably doesn't mean a thing to you)
Maar het is waar ik geboren ben

(But this is where I am born)
Dit dorp, ik weet nog hoe het was

(This village, I still remember the way it was)
De boerenkind'ren in de klas

(The farmers' children in the class)
Een kar die ratelt op de keien

(A carriage, rattling on the boulders)
Het raadhuis met een pomp ervoor

(The town house with a pump in front)
Een zandweg tussen koren door

(A sandy road through the corn)
Het vee, de boerderijen

(The cattle, the farms)

En langs het tuinpad van m'n vader

(And along my father's garden path)
Zag ik de hoge bomen staan

(I saw the high trees standing tall)
Ik was een kind en wist niet beter

(I was a child and didn't know better)
Dan dat 't nooit voorbij zou gaan

(Thinking this would never end)

Wat leefden ze eenvoudig toen

(They lived so simple back then)
In simp'le huizen tussen groen

(In simple houses surrounded by green)
Met boerenbloemen en een heg

(With farmer flowers and a hedge)
Maar blijkbaar leefden ze verkeerd

(But they apparently lived wrongly)
Het dorp is gemoderniseerd

(The village is modernised)
En nou zijn ze op de goede weg

(And now they are on the road ahead)
Want ziet, hoe rijk het leven is

(Because, see how wonderful life is)
Ze zien de televisiequiz

(They see the television quiz)
En wonen in betonnen dozen

(And live in concrete boxes)
Met flink veel glas, dan kun je zien

(With lots of glass, so you can see)
Hoe of het bankstel staat bij Mien

(How Mien's couch fits in)
En d'r dressoir met plastic rozen

(And her dresser with plastic roses)

En langs het tuinpad van m'n vader

(And along my father's garden path)
Zag ik de hoge bomen staan

(I saw the high trees standing tall)
Ik was een kind en wist niet beter

(I was a child and didn't know better)
Dan dat 't nooit voorbij zou gaan

(Thinking this would never end)


De dorpsjeugd klit wat bij elkaar

(The village youths hang around together)
In minirok en beatle-haar

(In short dresses and Beatle-hair)
En joelt wat mee met beat-muziek

(And shouts some beat-music)
Ik weet wel het is hun goeie recht

(I know, they have every right to)
De nieuwe tijd, net wat u zegt

(Modern times, as you say)
Maar het maakt me wat meancholiek

(But it makes me a bit melancholic)
Ik heb hun vaders nog gekend

(I used to know their fathers)
Ze kochten zoethout voor een cent

(They bought licorice for a cent)
Ik zag hun moeders touwtjespringen

(I saw their mothers jumping rope)
Dat dorp van toen, het is voorbij

(The village from those times, it's gone)
Dit is al wat er bleef voor mij

(This is all that's left for me)
Een ansicht en herinneringen

(A postcard and memories)
Toen ik langs het tuinpad van m'n vader

(When I saw along my father's garden path)
De hoge bomen nog zag staan

(The high trees standing tall)
Ik was een kind, hoe kon ik weten

(I was a child, how could I know)
Dat dat voorgoed voorbij zou gaan

(It would all end forever)


It is quite astonishing, for both good and bad reasons, that this song is placed so high in the top 2000. Hell, I am surprised it is placed at all in the list. The movie I chose to correspond with this song is the first Dutch movie ever to be nominated for an Oscar for best foreign-language film.
  
The Movie: Village by the River (Dorp aan de rivier) (Fons Rademakers, 1958)

While watching this movie, the thought that Wim Sonneveld's song was inspired by this movie seriously crossed my mind. I can't find if this is true, but if it is, Sonneveld slightly misunderstood the movie. Yes, the movie has a lot of love for the villagers and the village life in probably the 1930's, but this is not a purely nostalgic movie. There is a cynicism buried beneath the love. And while it gives a relatively rosy view of life in the village, it understands that this life can't and shouldn't last. Changes are inevitable and that's probably for the better. I thought it was really very good,

The movie really have a plot. It basically consists of a series of vignettes, most of them revolving around the village doctor. Which is fitting. It is after all set in a time in which doctors were considered heroes and the most important people in the community. They were highly respected and their opinion was seen as the absolute truth. If the doctor told you to do something, you'd do it. While the movie doesn't show the doctor as absolutely good/moral man, it does show that he is highly knowledgeable and doesn't make a big deal out of it when he doesn't act really nicely, even forgives him. Besides, he is presented as the best person living in the village. He is the only one to posses integrity, courage and intelligence. During a cold winter storm for example he crosses courageously (when no one else wants to help him) the river to help a woman give birth. And in his first scene we see that he knows exactly how much time he has to read his morning paper before helping another woman give birth. He is a real family man and the only one to live in a beautiful sophisticated house. While the movie loves the other villagers a lot, it presents them unambiguously as dumb, except for the mayor. But he is presented as evil and corrupt.

As I mentioned, Rademakers doesn't present a pretty rosy view of life in the village, in fact he is sometimes very cynical. But he somehow combines that with a simultaneously very warm view of the village and its people. It is very clear that he has much love for the relaxed, slow and sometimes dull life in the village. While the movie only lasts about 90 minutes, he shoots his scenes in a pretty meandering, patient way. He tries to avoid cutting as much as possible and he loves to zoom in or zoom out during the shot when he wants to go from a long shot to a close-up or the other way around. This little cutting means that the movie is 'moving' on leisurely pace. He never seems to rush anything, mirroring life in the village. In creating sympathy for most villagers he is helped a lot by his actors, who manage to convey a lot of sympathy and regret for things gone wrong. In other words Rademakers manages to convey a lot of sympathy and love for characters he doesn't really agree with. He understands them, even if he knows the life they live cannot (and should not) be sustained. Few movies do this really.

And it's quite clear that Rademakers' view of the village isn't rosy. The men seem to be utterly afraid of women and are often seen as enormous fools, who are of no help to anyone. One man even kills himself because his wife is bullying him. It's not known what that bullying entails, but the other men agree that this is a big problem in the village. Apparently lots of men are bullied by their wives and this is seen as a logical reason for suicide. And in the aforementioned scene in which the doctor reads his newspaper before helping a woman give birth, the woman is in a lot of pain, but she is constantly telling very sternly to her husband what he should do and how he should make the doctor feel at home. The terrified husband sheepishly obliges her every time, but he is so clumsy he constantly screws up even his simplest tasks. 

And when the men try to act 'masculine' their actions are either so incredibly stupid that they fail or they are exposed as cowards, whose actions don't align with their big mouth. For example, in an absurdly and darkly funny scene we see four men gathered around the corpse of the man who killed himself because he was bullied by his wife. They drink alcohol and make stupid jokes about their toughness and masculinity. Rademakers constantly underlines the pathetic nature of these jokes. There is no truth to them, these are deeply insecure men, who make these jokes to (unsuccessfully) hide their insecurity. Anyway after some joking one of them claim that he is the biggest man (or something like that) and he'll show this by taking the scarf of the face of a sickly old woman, living just out of the village (I did not get what her sickness is. I assume it was/is common knowledge that a woman hiding her face with a scarf has a certain disease. I have no idea what this disease could have possibly been). Anyway, the next day the man goes there and does take her scarf away. We don't see him do this. We just see the house of the woman from the outside and hear some screaming. And then we see the woman getting out of the house screaming some more. We see that all of this is being watched by the woman's son. In the next scene we hear that the man taking her scarf away was killed. By not showing any of this Rademakers gives even less credence to this stupid use of masculinity. And in another, much lighter and funnier scene a man hunts animals where that's prohibited so the police comes looking for him. He hides everywhere, not having the guts to confront the police. Eventually he hides under the toilet. He is not lucky. Not only does the police find him, the police finds him, because a policeman inadvertently shat on him.
 

Most actions in the village are actually represented as being only for decorum. Actions here rarely have the intended effect. They usually don't even have bad consequences, but no consequences at all. They are completely meaningless. The same can be said of the village traditions. During one scene for example a man meets a (incredibly stereotypically presented) gypsy woman. She comes into his house, hoping to get some food. The man gives her to it, hoping to have sex or at least develop a friendship. No such luck. He falls asleep and when he wakes it turns out that the gypsy woman has not only swindled him, but she also has a husband and after taking some food she leaves the village. And the good doctor can help many people, but his wife dies of a simple cold. After she dies he secretly moves her body to his birthplace. The funeral is a big, but rather meaningless ceremony, considering the coffin is empty. Another meaningless ceremony is the   'retirement party'. It's a forced retirement, because the mayor hates the doctor and sacks him. We hear the mayor saying all kinds of bad things about the doctor in a closed session with his cabinet. But when he has to talk in front of the whole village at the doctor's retirement party he says all kinds of things about how great the doctor is and how sad it is that he has to retire. It is a very cynical and great scene in a movie that surprised me a lot.