52 Films by Women Vol 8. 34. Zoete Dromen (Sweet Dreams) (Director: Ena Sendijarević)
‘I don’t want to
dominate,’ says Cornelis (Florian Myjer) as he arrives to take over affairs at
his late father’s estate. What he does instead is dissemble. His intention is
to sell the plantation and enrich himself and his new, heavily pregnant wife,
Josefien (Lisa Zweerman). Only the notary informs him that the plantation has
been left to young Karel (Rio Kaj Den Haas), a half-Dutch, half-Indonesian
child that the late Jan (Hans Dagelet) sired with his Indonesian housekeeper,
Siti (Hayati Azis). Cornelis is naturally upset, first looking at the boy and
declaiming, ‘Karel? Who called him that?’ Then he objects when the boy plays
with his rocking horse that Jan built especially for him. Cornelis sends the
boy outside and puts the toy by the wall. Later, he sits on it himself, the
inference being that his father never treated him so well.
None of the
characters is particularly sympathetic, though we are initially drawn to Jan’s
wronged wife, Agathe (Renée Soutendijk, familiar from Paul Verhoeven’s early
films, Spetters and The Fourth Man) who is tasked with putting her late
husband’s affairs in order with an enthusiasm that fluctuates. She is
indirectly responsible for a complication. Jan is buried at night in the forest
after the smell of his decaying corpse filled the house (‘you’ll get used to
it,’ she tells her son and daughter-in-law, when they enter and exit with enforced
rapidity). However, when it is time for the death to be formally recorded, his
body cannot be found. With no confirmation of death by the notary, the estate
cannot be passed to Karel. Jan is judged to have ‘disappeared’. Agathe is
genuinely befuddled.
We might also
sympathise with Karel’s mother, Siti, who is required to dance for Jan before
his pleasure turns from ocular to physical. Jan, we conclude, is a frequent
visitor to Siti’s bedroom, where she lies on a single bed curled against her
son. The son is required to vacate the bed for the second part of the night’s
entertainment. When Jan is on top of Siti, Karel counts down (‘three, two,
one’) to the moment of ejaculation. We wonder whether Siti poisoned Jan. No
sooner than Jan returns to his own room does he start choking. He reaches for
the bell, but Agathe pulls it away. After he passes, Agathe lies in the same
bed, her back to him. Sleeping next to a corpse appears to be no different from
any other night.
Siti rejects a
suitor, Reza (Muhammad Khan) and justifies herself to some washer women as
‘better than them’. What is clear is that inequality creates unhappy and
unlikeable people. Agathe explains to Cornelis that she ‘cannot go in the
factory’. She isn’t respected. Sendaijarević depicts a patriarchal society in
which women have little agency. ‘Where would we go?’ Siti asks Reza. It’s a
legitimate question.
Sendijarević uses
the Academy ratio, 1.37:1, where 1.37 represents width and 1 height. The point
of view is narrow, at once reminiscent of early cinema but also of the limited
space the characters have. Josefin ‘does not want to squeeze a baby out in this
place’. She is sexually frustrated. Cornelis won’t touch her, and when he
kisses her by way of apology, she spurns him. Her attempt to use a bed post to
stimulate her clitoris (placing her legs between the post and starting to rub)
is interrupted. When she is followed by Reza whilst searching for her husband,
then vomits, then is given a banana and a back rub by him and invites him to
put his hand on her breast, Reza bursts out laughing. He isn’t the answer that she
seeks.
Sendijarević’s
composition is immaculate, her scenes brisk and precise, sometimes minimalist.
The opening scene is an exercise in editing and framing. We see a haunch of
meat dragged across the ground, then pulled into the air, the rope thrown over
a thick tree branch. We see the blur of
a tiger passing close by. The hunting party is gathered in a group watching.
Karel is holding a rifle. The tiger leaps up. Jan instructs him to shoot. We
see the discharge of a shot and hear the crumpling of a tiger’s body. The
dragging of a haunch of meat across the ground becomes a recurring motif. The
recently deceased Jan is dragged across the floor, the pattern on the tiles
resembling an M C Escher design (boxes that look three dimensional). Another
body is dragged across the floor as well.
Pictured: Siti (Hayati Azis, centre) in a scene from the Dutch turn-of-the-century drama, 'Zoete Dromen', written and directed by Ena Sendijarević. Photo: Emo Weemhoff. Still courtesy of Gusto Film Distribution (Netherlands)
Jan and Agathe’s
conversation is fractious. Agathe speaks Indonesian to the staff. Jan tells her
to speak Dutch at a party. She replies in Indonesian. Jan is incensed. ‘As you
wish,’ he replies in Dutch. Agathe repeats his words in clearly enunciated
Dutch back to him. She has agreed, but on her terms. Sendijarević dwells on a
lengthy conversation that Agathe has with a female guest about whether the
telephone brings someone closer to you or accentuates distance. The word
‘telephone’ is never mentioned but we work out what they are referring to. ‘It
is so good to speak to another Dutch person,’ the guest concludes, by way of
conclusion. It appears that though they stand next to each other, they are in
terms of what really matters ‘quite far away’.
At Jan’s funeral,
Reza translates the words of the priest into Indonesian, mocking of the
plantation owner. (‘Jan was glad to have our dicks in his mouth.’) Eliciting
laughter from the other, Reza is struck on the face and banished from the
estate. This doesn’t stop him returning to Siti, asking her to leave with him.
Agathe writes to
Cornelis, threatening to remove his allowance if he does not come. She stabs a
fly with the nib of her fountain pen, the remains of the fly are a smudge next
to her regular handwriting. When we are introduced to Cornelis, his carriage is
stuck in the mud. ‘She has to get out,’ the driver tells him. Cornelis asks the
pregnant Josefin to do so. Her shoe is plunged into mud – or worse. The driver
carries her to a rock from which she observes efforts to move the carriage.
When we next see her, she is back in the carriage asleep next to her husband,
two spent children tired from their outdoor play in finery that is incongruous.
Agathe embraces her son but is castigated for not attending the wedding. ‘You
got married quite quickly,’ she comments with a hint of disdain. There is
little warmth between them, nor between Cornelis and Josefin. Cornelis regrets
his wife wanting to come. What was justified as an ‘adventure’ is anything but.
Pictured: Cornelis (Florian Myjer) seeks a swift end to his money troubles in a scene from the Dutch, turn-of-the-century set drama, 'Zoete Dromen', written and directed by Ena Sendijarević. Photo: Emo Weemhoff. Courtesy of Gusto Film Distribution (Netherlands).
Cornelis’ main task
is to end the strike called by plantation workers. They have not been paid for last year’s
harvest. It is unclear why. Cornelis also wants to eliminate Karel. He takes a
rifle and follows the boy but wavers before firing a shot. By this time, Karel
has leapt into the river. Cornelis jumps in after him without undressing,
eliciting some laughter. When he discusses the matter later, he describes the
thought of killing the boy as ridiculous.
With Jan’s body not
found but Siti learning of Karel’s inheritance, there appears to be an impasse.
It is in the workers’ interest for one last harvest. However, Reza decides to
break up a house party and Agathe’s grief and realization that she has nothing
to return to brings the drama to a destructive end.
Karel meanwhile
remains mysterious. He has no other children to play with; Jan was his only
playmate. We don’t really get to know him, the extent to which he is maturing.
A child in an adult’s world, he is like a spectre, self-absorbed but able to
act when needed. Sendijarević follows the Henrik Ibsen dictum that a gun
introduced in Act One must be used in Act Three. The ending is pessimistic.
To be buried under
several hundred kilogrammes of sugar. We imagine the person fighting for life,
though the sugar conceals it. Starved of air, they drown. Siti and Karel, the
house and its staff face an uncertain future.
Why make a film in
the early 2020s about the failure of colonialism? Possibly as a reminder that
projections of nationalism are a façade. In the end, sheets are washed by the
river regardless of who they belong to. We see Karel running past washing lines
filled with white sheets. The characters’ emotional laundry isn’t done in
public, but we see the effects. Whiteness does not equal superiority. Even with
technology, human effort from the indigenous population is required. Zoete Dromen doesn’t say anything new. However, in the
Dutch (far right nationalist) context, as a riposte to Geert Wilders and the
PVV (‘Party for Freedom’), its message is welcome.
Reviewed at
Chichester Cinema, Chichester International Film Festival, UK, Friday 23 August
2024, 13:45 screening.
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