Them main character of the movie is a woman called Marieke who has just gone through a breakup. Post-breakup behaviour for her is going through her list of boyfriends and people who have given her their numbers trying to get a rebound date whilst getting progressively drunker on the red wine. It's not going well, so she orders in the pepperoni pizza. Poor dear, no actually I can't sympathise.
Unfortunately, what should have been tears before bedtime becomes trauma before bedtime as she and a female friend get violently assaulted by a man who invades her home.
The rest of the film concerns Marieke in the countryside trying to renovate a house and rebuild her life. She has rage attacks, and fear attacks, and it's pretty horrible viewing at times. She dreams of torturing the rapist and actually does some pretty morally reprehensible things during her convalescence. One particularly nasty scene involves considering an abortion, and has Marieke having a conversation with her unborn baby trying to justify herself.
What was interesting for me is that she uses the internet to get over her trauma, she goes on a messaging site, where she meets a character called Herfst who is sympathetic, but also later says some pretty terrible things. She has turned the rapist in and he has been sentenced, but Herfst says for example that it's her duty to kill the guy, or she'll be responsible the next time the guy rapes. So I was interested by the kind of dysfunction of internet relationships, where you take advice from people who don't really understand the context of your situation properly. I asked Esther Rots (who was present at the screening I went to at the EIFF) about this and she said that she didn't really see it in that way, for her the internet relationship was a good thing, that straight after the attack Marieke had no-one to talk to except this individual on the internet. Sure this person did say things that tripped up her progress at some point, but that wasn't to say that overall it was a bad thing.
What's also interesting is that although the movie is about the aftermath of a rape and assault, director Esther Rots, who wrote the movie as well, has never been raped, and she also didn't really research the experience of rape victims. She said after the screening that she got three books on the subject, but didn't get past page one of book one because she wanted the movie to be real. So she basically imagined what it would be like if she had been raped by someone. You may think that wouldn't work, but apparently at the previous night's showing, there was a consultant psychologist in the audience and he said it was tremendously close to the real experience of raped women.
I think that the production standards were very high as well, there were only five people making up the cast and crew of this film and they lived together whilst they were making it, they edited it and made the sound design on the go. Dan Geesin the guy who did the sound design did a great dob, it was done incredibly intricately. A lot of films you will see assault scenes done soundless, or with music over. He really really made everything as realistic as possible with his amazing dedication.
So this is a really brave film because Esther Rots has based the character Marieke on herself. I've seen sometimes how women are distressed by extreme displays of testosterone-fuelled behaviour. Well there are oestrogenic attacks par excellence in this movie. I have never been able to deal with these. Even before the rape I would have found Marieke an impossible person to deal with, a kind of whirlwind of emotion and activity. So I think it's very brave that Esther put that all out there, as you can't often see "through the skin" of female characters in movies. Rifka Lodeizen, who has mainly been involved in TV work so far, was really acting the part so tremendously well, surprised no awards for her yet.
Unfortunately, what should have been tears before bedtime becomes trauma before bedtime as she and a female friend get violently assaulted by a man who invades her home.
The rest of the film concerns Marieke in the countryside trying to renovate a house and rebuild her life. She has rage attacks, and fear attacks, and it's pretty horrible viewing at times. She dreams of torturing the rapist and actually does some pretty morally reprehensible things during her convalescence. One particularly nasty scene involves considering an abortion, and has Marieke having a conversation with her unborn baby trying to justify herself.
What was interesting for me is that she uses the internet to get over her trauma, she goes on a messaging site, where she meets a character called Herfst who is sympathetic, but also later says some pretty terrible things. She has turned the rapist in and he has been sentenced, but Herfst says for example that it's her duty to kill the guy, or she'll be responsible the next time the guy rapes. So I was interested by the kind of dysfunction of internet relationships, where you take advice from people who don't really understand the context of your situation properly. I asked Esther Rots (who was present at the screening I went to at the EIFF) about this and she said that she didn't really see it in that way, for her the internet relationship was a good thing, that straight after the attack Marieke had no-one to talk to except this individual on the internet. Sure this person did say things that tripped up her progress at some point, but that wasn't to say that overall it was a bad thing.
What's also interesting is that although the movie is about the aftermath of a rape and assault, director Esther Rots, who wrote the movie as well, has never been raped, and she also didn't really research the experience of rape victims. She said after the screening that she got three books on the subject, but didn't get past page one of book one because she wanted the movie to be real. So she basically imagined what it would be like if she had been raped by someone. You may think that wouldn't work, but apparently at the previous night's showing, there was a consultant psychologist in the audience and he said it was tremendously close to the real experience of raped women.
I think that the production standards were very high as well, there were only five people making up the cast and crew of this film and they lived together whilst they were making it, they edited it and made the sound design on the go. Dan Geesin the guy who did the sound design did a great dob, it was done incredibly intricately. A lot of films you will see assault scenes done soundless, or with music over. He really really made everything as realistic as possible with his amazing dedication.
So this is a really brave film because Esther Rots has based the character Marieke on herself. I've seen sometimes how women are distressed by extreme displays of testosterone-fuelled behaviour. Well there are oestrogenic attacks par excellence in this movie. I have never been able to deal with these. Even before the rape I would have found Marieke an impossible person to deal with, a kind of whirlwind of emotion and activity. So I think it's very brave that Esther put that all out there, as you can't often see "through the skin" of female characters in movies. Rifka Lodeizen, who has mainly been involved in TV work so far, was really acting the part so tremendously well, surprised no awards for her yet.