244. Son of Mine

Song - Bestel Mar (Rowwen Heze)

Movie: Son of Mine - Gluckauf (Remy van Heugten, 2015)

You can't tack on a redemption arc in the final 15 minutes after spending 1,5 hour wallowing (convincingly and entertaingly!) in bleak violent nihilism. It's not only absurd to ask for sympathy for one of the most irredeemable brutes I've seen recently, it's also a betrayal of the writing and Bart Slegers's performance. The film is really strong in portraying Lei and his son Jeffrey (Vincent van der Valk) as figures fully devoid of humane qualities, or any capacity for moral introspection and goodness. Both men act as if they are driven purely by greed and prehistoric survival instincts - one of the film's most memorable moments is van der Valk's evil, lecherous little laugh as he discovers that he gets to transport some young foreign prostitutes for a crime boss. He doesn't end up doing anything to the women, but that laugh is horrifying enough. 

The aforementioned crime boss Vester is played by Johan Leysen as if Christoph Waltz was the film's first choice. He carries himself with an unearned air of sophistication, pretending that he is trying to save ghouls like Lei and Jeffrey from themselves, while desperately needing them for his dirty jobs. He is a ruthless killer giving orders in farmers overalls, befitting the setting. The film takes place in the mining villages in the southern part of the Dutch province of Limburg and all the actors speak in dialect. Van Heugten smartly does not tie any social considerations to Jeffrey and Lei's behaviour, while still showing how their lives are shaped by context-specific details. A meeting with gangsters from Liege is quite notable as it reminds that in a big city these men would hide in the underwould, while in the Limbug vilages they are part of the fabric of society, living their lives alongside everyone else. As none of the villagers are introverted types, this leads to some tense and darkly funny conforntations that always have the potential to explode in many different directions. That makes its key plot twist, expressed only with a quiet cut, only more effective.

I was so surprised and enamored by how van Heugten set up the final act that I thought he could do only one thing to lose me, and, well he did. To be fair, Lei's sudden desire to do good and be absolved for his sins doesn't entirely come out of nowhere. The film is not shy to show the crosses he wears, even if it never considers how the idea(l)s behind them may shape his life. Even so, Lei starts the film blithely shooting a rifle at his ex-wife's house, effectively kindapping his son, and only gets more brutal from there. It's hard to believe how anyone working on the film could think the last 15 minites sentimentalising him were a good idea. Still, Son of Mine was in 2016 the big winner of the Dutch equivalent of the Oscars. Even with a better ending that should have been Sam de Jong's Prins.