CISKE DE RAT (1984)
Director: Guido Pieters
Cinematographer: Frans Bromet
Ah the trials and tribulations of finding oneself a burden of the state!
In order to keep their diminutive protagonists likeable and the audience rooting for them, many troubled-street-urchin tales tend to have their series of traumatic, life-altering events happen purely by accident or a misunderstanding or by dreadful coincidence. Basically, our knee-high heroes are usually in the wrong place at the wrong time. This adds a farcical element to such stories, like Ciske de Rat, which I can’t say I appreciate.
Just have them be horrendous sociopaths on their own terms and tell that story.
I’m still trying to casually learn Dutch, so I can’t be totally sure what’s going on in this scene from the Netherlands’ answer to Oliver Twist, but my best guess is that the titular Ciske, played by local pop star Danny de Munk, has been dropped into a foster family which, he suspects, simply doesn’t want him there.
Probably because they don’t want him there.
Nevertheless, he’ll be shoved along on his unlucky way again soon enough by yet another awful turn of events, but we shall mercifully arrive at good times by the end of this period miniseries.
While none of the principle filmmaker credits standout to an ignorant English-speaking viewer such as myself, the photography has the luscious blues and reds and brutalist blocking of Paul Verhoeven’s old pal Jost Vacano, so perhaps fellow Dutchman Frans Bromet exchanged notes with Vacano before the latter jetted off to Hollywood.
The above shot in particular showcases some impressive framing from Bromet, with Ciske’s miserable apathy at his latest grim circumstances in the shadowy foreground, while his new foster mother sits looking just as downtrodden, for different-but-the-same reasons, in the background amidst a halo of saintly light.
Now that’s some fine visual storytelling for you!
Do stay in touch, darlings.
Toodles!
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