REVIEW - BORGMAN

The Dutch arthouse. Such a concept practically demands that you take it seriously. Borgman, however, does not. Alex Van Warmerdam has here developed one of the year's most oblique, intellectual films, and his entire process of filming it has been devoted to dismantling said intellect. He's dumbing down and tarting up, and hooray for him. If anything, I wish he had indulged in yet more debasement, as Borgman is at its best when at its funniest and at its daftest. It's startling, in fact, how perfectly droll a tone he manages, considering that Van Warmerdam is the sort of writer-director to cast himself in the part of the frequently-topless husband (just imagine if he had been a woman). Such drollness usually goes hand-in-hand with the film's marvellous, generous, bizarre streak, as Van Warmerdam goads the material further and further into surrealism, most piquant when employed in conjunction with Borgman's brutal violence. All this silliness is rooted in something - Van Warmerdam has every intention of crudely sending up his very own work, so he needs something to send up in the first place. The crass primary colours with which he paints, though, may work terrifically the more he strays into parody, but he is genuinely making a serious, Dutch arthouse-style point here too, and it's equally silly and equally flimsy as the rest of the film. As satire on the modern bourgeoisie, Borgman is a real, and pungent success, but Van Warmerdam's dedication to his cause strands him with precious little else to do but hammer home the same point again and again. Narrative inevitability sets in early, and diminishes the impact of scenes which might have benefitted massively from surprise value, to enhance their shock value. But that shock value remains intact, alongside the technical professionalism of the project and the deliciously twisted tone that Van Warmerdam maintains throughout.