Review of Evenings

Rudolf van den Berg makes a recognizable film of the novel by Gerard Reve with the same title. It is a difficult novel to make a movie because one has to enter into the complicated psychology of the young man Frits van Egters (a convincing Thom Hoffman) living with his parents. He has a difficulty to grow up and his contact with friends, neighbours, women are rather unsatisfactory so he prefers to make love with his rabbit-doll. The music by Bob Zimmerman gives the necessary rhythm to the slow pace of the movie. One likes to watch the strange dialogues of Frits with his indifferent father (Rijk De Gooier). The scenes are showing us the repetitive life of a Dutch family after the war, where nothing ever happens. But the director catches the inner passion of Frits who wants to unravel his secret "real life" to his parents who apparently do not understand him but feel compassion for him. At two times Frits thinks he is dead and he sees his mourning parents at his death-bed. So now they know definitely what they lost he thinks but some moments after he is again confronted with the

furniture of the living-room which has another sight by the frog-perspective of the camera. This seems to be the way he sees his life: from below. He finds only some emotional satisfaction by talking to his rabbit, rather than to human beings.