de Poorten Van de Nacht

De komst van Joachim Stiller / The arrival of Joachim Stiller - by Harry Kumel (1976)

This movie is a magic realism movie. A real fine mystery about a journalist named Freek who gets a letter one day. Now everybody gets letters everyday so not worth making a movie of this subject you think now. Strange thing is that the letter was posted more then 20 years before Freek was born. How could someone know where Freek should live more then 20 years later as a grown up ? Then more strange things happen,and one name is always returning : 'Joachim Stiller' Who is he ? What's his mission ? Is he an enemy or a friend ? Freek wants to know who that Joachim Stiller is and starts searching.

A real fine mystery about a journalist named Freek who gets a letter one day. Now everybody gets letters everyday so not worth making a movie of this subject you think now. Strange thing is that the letter was posted more then 20 years before Freek was born. How could someone know where Freek should live more then 20 years later as a grown up ? Then more strange things happen,and one name is always returning : 'Joachim Stiller' Who is he ? What's his mission ? Is he an enemy or a friend ? Freek wants to know who that Joachim Stiller is and starts searching.

The second movie version, now in color, of Flemish (heimat-)author Ernest Claes' classical novel, titled after the nickname (Dutch 'the White', referring to a blond male) of the main character. The smart but naughty farmhands son's eternal mischief, pranks and disobedience drive his elders (especially teachers, family and father's grumpy employer, a rich farmer, but also neighbors and even the kind curate whose liturgical server he is) and classmates to despair in a time when a boy's punishment was still inevitable, swift and often severe; thus when his mother catches him skinny dipping she takes all his clothes home, forcing him to a long walk of shame, dreading dad's wrath all the way. This version also stresses the story's social and Flamingant aspects