The 2013 Dutch thriller Borgman unfolds with the texture of a weird, unnerving mid-century fairy tale retrofitted for adults. It’s the kind of yarn that incorporates great imagination and compelling characters, but where nasty things happen. Borgman maintains great creative tenacity and inventiveness, and because of that told I expected more from its last 15 minutes than what I got.
From Netherlands director Alex van Warmerdam, Borgman opens with a small group of men, including a priest, arming themselves with axes and shotguns as if townspeople after Frankenstein. Cut to ‘the monster’, Borgman, (Jan Bijvoet) in a underground dwelling. Upon hearing their approach, he escapes and alerts others underground dwellers in his community to save themselves. Borgman runs for it—and finds himself at the front door of a fancy modern mansion. What does he want? A bath. The man of the house, Richard, (Jeroen Perceval) quickly tries to shoo him away, but once Borgman sees the man’s wife, Marina (Hadewych Minis) he implies he and her have met before. Is he telling the truth? She doesn’t remember. The man loses his patience and promptly beats Borgman – with his fists and whatever’s handy in the yard– leaving him on his front steps like trash.
Marina feels guilty after the assault. Once she realizes the vagrant hasn’t left, just hidden himself on their property, she invites the man in. There’s is a normal family—they have three kids and a live in nanny. But what exactly is normal? Normalcy certainly isn’t permanent.
The unfolding of the narrative is the film’s charm, if you don’t mind charming things to veer towards the darkness. I followed compulsively even as things are never plainly laid out. Things happen before our often surprised eyes. Things that are beautiful and haunting and confounding. Things the filmmaker will let you sort out as opposed to spoon-feeding it to you. It’s a film I approached not knowing a lot, and if you’re down for an unusual story you should too. I’d forgotten details from any of the reviews of it I read last year. Afterwards, the film fidgeted in my brain and I went back on line to re-read a couple. Other viewers caught something I missed: this is inspired by the 1932 Boudu Saved From Drowning, by Jean Renoir, where a homeless man shakes a wealthy family out of its complacency. That film was remade as Down And Out In Beverly Hills. Borgman though veers off into its own territory, pulling from folklore more than cinema. And being a Dutch film, it remains surreal and inventive and compulsively watchable.
Searching the quote which opens the film: “And they descended upon the Earth to strengthen their ranks” led me to a the Old Testament and a new Wikipedia word: Nephilim; a Biblical reference to fallen angels, or giant warriors who ‘cause others to fall down.’ Thinking over the film, that explained a lot, even if the films’ ending doesn’t land harder and isn’t made more effective knowing it.
Bare with me: this movie made me think of the first real hike I made with my mentor 20 years ago. A steep three mile mountain hike up to an elevation of 1700 ft. As a newbie it was a dazzling experience for me, but when we got to the top all I saw was a clear sunlit field of daisies. I looked around and said: “Is that it? I just paid a dude $50 to cut these off my lawn back home.” I expected an epiphany of some kind and was left with the simplest of beauty. In my mind, the ending of Borgman kinda reminds me of getting to the summit of that trail. I had a amazing time that could never be replicated. It was gorgeous and new, but at the moment the it was over, I nearly missed the point. Sometimes it’s the journey itself that’s most compelling. And the end… is just the end of the trail. Where did I possibly expect it go?