Van Warmerdam is my favourite Dutch director. He makes films that are quintessentially Dutch in their tone and touches upon Dutch sensibilities with confounding and intriguing absurdism.

Borgman is a step away from that in so far that this is a more universally themed film, but it is still imbued in that trademark van Warmerdam style. It is a film that is very difficult to grasp and I feel attempting to make sense of it is missing the point. This is a visually striking mood piece, focused more on conveying a sensation rather than recounting a story.

Borgman is about evil. Evil we, adults, call upon ourselves, invite into our homes, driving our self centred lives. As heavy as this…

“And they descended upon the earth to strengthen their ranks.”

With the utmost confidence and command, Alex van Warmerdam's Borgman opening scene sunk its hooks in deep and refused to let me go for the remainder of its running time. A Priest and a lynch mob of sorts hunt down a nest of (literal) underground vagrants and send them scampering for safety out of the woods and into palatial suburbia, and from this dizzying and disorienting (and one of the most exhilarating cinematic moments I have experienced of late) set-piece we are flung into the world of the sly and seductive Camiel Borgman.

A film that would seemingly fall into the expanding 'home invasion' subgenre of cinema, Borgman eschews categorization…

Borgman is a very playful, intriguing and exciting piece of film from the Dutch veteran Alex van Warmerdam (starring in a smaller role as well, as he usually does).
Borgman flings us into the action with a riveting chase between a priest and his lackeys and a group of men hiding underneath the forest soil.
One of these men turn out to be Camiel Borgman.
After Borgman warns his compatriots of the impending danger, himself having barely managed to escape, he enters a fashionable slice of suburbia and tests the inhabitants' will to let an unknown, unkempt man have a bath.

After instigating an altercation with the man of one of the houses, he manages to instill a bit of…

I don't want to say too much about Borgman if you're going to watch it, because it's the strange kind of film that's best to go into somewhat cold. I will say though that it's a deeply dark and downright unpleasant work of cinema filled to the brim with enormously flawed and unstable characters that angered me to my very core. Of course, this was the director's intention.

One might think the primary theme of this film is betrayal, but I would argue that the amount of manipulation that this film contains - manipulation sometimes bordering on the point of mind control - overshadows the betrayal and sort of renders it void. There were times when I felt certain characters…

Borgman

Alex van Warmerdam is a Dutch polymath, working in the mediums of playwriting, screenwriting, painting, directing and acting. Borgman was the first Dutch film to be selected to compete at Cannes film festival in nearly four decades. The film screened at the 2013 Cannes and was nominated for the Palme d’Or.

In his Director’s Statement on the blu-ray, Warmerdam said: “In Borgman, I wanted to show that evil comes in everyday form, embodies within ordinary, normal, polite men and women who perform their tasks with pride and pleasure, and with ruthless attention to detail. I wanted to show that evil is enacted not just on cold winter nights, but in the optimistic summer, beneath a warm and comforting sun.”…

Freier Tag...🤷🏼‍♀️

Skurril, verstörend... durchaus gelungen...das beschreibt "Borgman" ganz passend.

Eine holländische, modernere Variante von "Funny Games", so wurde er mir angepriesen. 🤷🏼‍♀️
Die Grundidee ist ähnlich, der Film jedoch komplett anders.
Er ist nie langweilig und unterhält auch gut, gepackt wie "Funny Games" hat er mich leider dann doch nicht...und ist generell kein Vergleich zu Haneke!

Er war mir dafür zu sperrig und manchmal doch zu überzeichnet...

Ansonsten ein (für mich) gelungener, satirischer Thriller, über das Eindringen des Chaos ins (scheinbar) aufgeräumte Familienleben. 👍

"Borgman" ist mal wieder ein Film, der die Meinungen spaltet...in folgende Gruppen:
1. Hahaha!
2. Häääh?
3.Aaahhh!?
😇 Das hat er zumindest mit "Funny Games" gemeinsam...👍

youtu.be/CtWbkRsBx0w

Der Obdachlose Camiel Borgman erscheint eines Tages in…

What a wonderfully odd film! I remember seeing a few rave reviews of this when it came out, but if I'm honest, the drab poster killed my interest in it. That stern face and bland background gives no idea of how mischievous, fun and deeply, deeply strange a film this is (this one is a bit better).

Borgman is a home invasion film of sorts, although that also doesn't really do it justice. We first see the title character being driven from his subterranean home by a shotgun-wielding priest; with no explanation given for the destruction of his home, this left me immediately on the side of the victim - one of many things here where I wondered if this…

“And they descended upon the earth to strengthen their ranks,” reads the Biblical quote at the start of beginning of the film. Along with only one or two other clues that possibly link together, this quietly unnerving Palme d'Or nominee from Alex van Warmerdam is a tale without true definition. A dark comedic and surreal look at evil that asks you to decide who is more deserving of their crimes.

Two men arrive at the residence of their local priest, weapons in hand and armed with intent. No words are spoken as the priest joins their charge into the local forest axe held firmly in his hand. They know exactly where they are heading, stopping in an area where they…

A mysterious mole man flees his earthy abode then worms his way into a well-to-do family via the mother’s middle class guilt. He then, for want of a more suitable description, fucks them up in a variety of bizarre and unquantifiable ways.

Borgman is a modern fairy tale blending the often tragic interplay of cause and effect that makes those old fables sting, with a more modern, first world bent. A pied piper of sorts, Borgman aka Camiel (played by Jan Bijvoet), uses his indomitable charm, hard sedatives and violent coercion to enact his plan. He also has a ragtag team of stooges on hand to help terrorise his victims, one of which is played by writer/director Alex van Warmerdam.…

So I'm gonna start off here by saying if you liked Parasite by Bong Joon-Ho then you should stop reading any further and go watch Borgman by Alex van Warmerdam. They're not exactly the same, but the parallels are really interesting especially since this came out six years earlier.

Borgman is weird and the best way I can describe it is it's kind of like if Parasite and Dogtooth adopted a kid. In it, a vagrant shows up on the doorstep of a wealthy family and asks to use their bath. Weirdness ensues.

My initial read of it made me think it was a movie about class divides, particularly of the difference in privilege and how that's often not explicit…

Mefistofelico e inquietante. Van Wamerdam dà la sua versione della banalità del male che si nasconde dietro ogni angolo e dentro ogni personaggio. Il diavolo prende forma, bussa alla porta della borghesia e ne mette in evidenza la fragilità estrema delle apparenze, scoperchiando ancora una volta il vaso di Pandora sulla vera piaga che affligge l'Europa e il sistema europeo intero: la famiglia e le sue ipocrisie. Ipocrisie figlie di un'insoddisfazione personale, che rinchiudono i protagonisti nella propria cella/villa e li trascinano in una lenta agonia, che ha la sua tragica conclusione con la sostituzione quasi "parassitaria" degli elementi.
Van Wamerdam gioca con le atmosfere algide e fredde, in regia come in fotografia, attingendo a piene mani dal materiale già…