Character

Aroview: A murderous confrontation bookends an elegantly told story of class, oppression and perseverance in 1920s Rotterdam, in which a young peasant-turned-lawyer fights for respectability against the cruel, covert manipulations of his illegitimate father, the fearsome Town Bailiff.

A Dutch epic of rare scale, it bares the hallmarks of a prestigious, Dickens-like literary source (dense plotting and detail, broad time span) with Gothic production design as handsome as its blighted hero (Fedja Van Huet). Academy Award Winner for 1998's Best Foreign Film.

NZ International Film Festival 1998