IDFA: Amsterdam Global Village

Full house at beautiful Tuschinski last night – for a 25 year old film, a classic in world documentary history, Johan van der Keuken’s Amsterdam Global Village. 4 hours (!) plus one hour with the film’s producer Pieter van Huystee, Nosh van der Lely, the partner of van der Keuken, who took the sound and did a lot more, in a conversation with Carlo Chatrian from the Berlinale, accompanied on the stage by Bolivian Roberto, one of the key persons in the film who came with his son, who is ”being born” in the film, now he is a good looking 25 year old man.

With Roberto who left Bolivia to come to Holland, fell in love with a Dutch woman – the film crew went back to his village in the mountains to meet his mother in one of the many beautiful sequences in the film. The mother, who is still alive, Roberto said last night, cries and cries as she misses her son, it’s very emotional as it is in the sequence from Chechnya, where – sorry forgot his name – the charismatic Chechnyan living in Holland goes back to meet his family and do some humanitarian aid helped by Dutch organisations. The mother & son theme is there again – and there are awful images of corpses from what was the first Chechnyan war.

Amsterdam – the movements of the camera catching the city, its buildings and its people. The pizza courier, Khalid, on his moped plays a major role, he goes around, he buys hash in a coffee shop, he sees beautiful naked women at the photographer, for whom he delivers photos when developed… the red-haired woman and her son going back to the house, where she lived before she – Jewish – went into hiding for years during the war, and to the house, where her son was hiding. She tells her story sooo captivating… and the female dj at work, van der Keuken goes constantly close caressing the protagonists with an editing, done by late Barbara Hin, that gives a constant surprise of innovative solutions that goes with the flow through the canals and out to the outskirts, the industrial areas of the big city – not to forget as Pieter van Huystee said after the five hours that I (and my back and my bum!) survived.

Documentaries – all about people, yes, but it depends on how close you can get to them and on your cinematic skills. I was not bored for 4 hours. Shot on film, you see it. 

Thank you IDFA for this choice – to revisit a grand film.