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Feb 03, 2017Nursebob rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
“…and they descended upon the Earth to strengthen their ranks.” With this faux Old Testament-style quote writer/director Alex van Warmerdam opens his surreal and darkly comic film, a hodgepodge of sadistic puzzler in the vein of Lars von Trier, bourgeoisie skewering á la Michael Haneke, and devilishly sardonic Catholic nightmare straight from the mind of Luis Buñuel. The upper class is always an easy target for satire and "Borgman" is no exception—when he places an ad for a new gardener yuppy homeowner Richard is appalled by the number of non-white applicants and after youngest daughter Isolde guts a teddy bear her mother Marina lectures her on the poor third-world child who laboured to make it—but Warmerdam’s barbs are edgeless and we’ve heard all these jokes before. As a study in Good vs. Evil however he does manage to make us squirm for he presents a contemporary world devoid of virtue in which darker motives bubble beneath polite facades and wickedness, bearing the mark of the Beast no less, is meted out in the most innocent of packages. Indeed, Borgman only has to blow on the flames that already exist in order to wrack Richard and Marina’s home with all seven of the deadly sins. Finally, a downbeat finale brings forth the true horror of what we’ve been witnessing for the past two hours but even that falls strangely flat. Despite a storyline that at times derails into ad-lib territory and an infuriating smugness (deliberate perhaps?) which seems intent on convincing audiences the film is far more complex than it actually is, there is still an unsettling quality to the production. It’s almost as if the movie were judging you based on your reaction to it and finding therein something shameful. The Netherlands’ official entry for Best Foreign Language Oscar, 2014.