Mariken van Nieumeghen
Netherlands
, 80 min
Shown in 1975
CREDITS
- dir
-
Jos Stelling
- prod
-
Rob du Mee
- scr
-
Jos Stelling
- cam
-
Ernest Bresser
- cast
-
Ronnie Montagne, Sander Bais, Alida Sonnega, William de Kooy, Diet van de Hulst
This beautifully photographed medieval epic begins with the young blonde Mariken being sought as a witch, the “cause” of a plague which is devastating the country. As she hides among the dead, she tries to understand how she came to know more of death than of life. Through a series of flashbacks, we watch her leave her farm to join a theatrical band led by Moenen, a powerful and seductive actor/magician who takes control of her life. The recreation of the era is so overwhelmingly precise that one can only wonder at it. Harsh, naive, brutal and exquisite, Mariken is a vivid and sensual trip back to another time.
FACTOID #134
The 1986 San Francisco International’s Discovering Mike Leigh was the director’s first retrospective in the U.S. According to the San Francisco Examiner, Festival Artistic Director Peter Scarlet compared the then-unknown Leigh to Yasujiro Ozu before his work had achieved international recognition; while the latter director had been considered ’too Japanese’ for global audiences, Leigh was considered ’too British.’
