If Pasolini's Teorema and Haneke's Funny Games had a less successful child it may be Alex van Warmerdam's surreal, horror...home invasion thriller?? Now, don't get me wrong Borgman is not a bad film. It's just missing that little, often intangible, elusive, "something." It stars Jan Bijvoet as the enigmatic, cunningly evil, Camiel Borgman. The film is precisely directed and photographed, along with strong performance from Bijvoet and Hadewych Minis in particular. There is not a shot wasted, soaking in all of the natural beauty of the secluded area of The Netherlands where the film takes place. Aesthetic beauty flows from every shot, even the violent scenes, which is an impressive accomplishment. The story begins with a quote about how "they" shall come to Earth and strengthen their ranks
cut to priest taking communion
cut to priest toting a shotgun and then joining a couple of unnamed young men—also with guns—in search of the antagonists (yet oddly protagonists too) who they discover in an underground bunker in the forest, but Borgman is a step ahead and escapes. With the biblical evil sounding quote and the symbolism of Borgman and some of his lackeys rising from below the earth (added with some of the surrealism later in the film) it could be that Borgman and crew are not your garden-variety violent vagrants, but something wholly evil and not of this world. On the run from the priests Borgman is turned away from an upper-class Dutch family and after insinuating that he knows the wife, Marina (Minis), is beaten by the husband. Borgman, seemingly unphased returns and the manipulation begins. And like Eve in the Garden Marina is the first to fall. Borgman (and his crew) casts a spell on everyone they come in contact with, though this is nothing which the viewer can see
maybe it is pure evil. By the time Borgman shaves his large beard and cuts his hair, taking a job at the house as the gardener without the husband noticing it is the same guy he beat the s**t out of a few days earlier, you're in disbelief at what Warmerdam is asking of you, but if you are willing to except this and other surrealistic stretches Borgman can at least be worth the watch. The way in which Warmerdam builds sexual tension through story between Marina and Borgman is titillating. Personally this is one of the main aspects of the film that keep you hanging around. The themes are there. Warmerdam had it: using the character of Borgman to explore the nature of evil, manipulation, classism, what someone is willing to sacrifice and the dynamics of marriage. These issues are brought up, in most cases presented quite heavy handedly, as when Marina on a couple of occasions goes on raving diatribes about how they should realize how good they have it and essentially feel guilt over their privileged status. The problem is that in the end, Warmerdam, who himself plays one of the evil vagrants, leaves all of these highly explorative thematic intrigues flat and vague. I am not saying all questions must be answered; it is only that the thematic themes that lay in the subtext should have been strengthened. For example: in Teorema the viewer can see, through stronger writing and better overall direction, what each character sees and can gain in the mysterious visitor, even though Pasolini's film is as abstract and at times surreal as Borgman. There are very striking images in Borgman. One of the best and most complex images is the reoccurring scene of Borgman nude sitting on Marina's sweat drenched chest as she sleeps at night; a direct reference to Henry Fuseli's famous painting, The Nightmare, in which an incubus sits nude, hunched at the knee, on the chest of a sleeping woman. This fits perfectly with the overwhelming atmosphere of death and sexuality in the film. These scenes are magnificent, perfectly filmed, and the audience is never sure if it is actually happening (which is possible in the world of Borgman) or if it is only a nightmare that Marina is having. Every time this image is evoked Marina awakes in a cold sweat at the moment the nude Borgman leaps from her chest and exits the room. More of this layered nuance would have done much in assisting every facet of the movie. Was Borgman as good as it could have been? No. But if you want a well directed, well acted, playfully dark, surrealistic, psycho-sexual thriller, infused with the type of subtle dark humor of Pablo Larrain's Tony Monero, then this whimsical, pied-piper of a film is going to do delight, if nothing else.
