Last night I decided to once again watch a foreign film. I decided on the Dutch
movie Hemel. I liked the movie because it was very well done, and thought provoking. It stars Hannah Hoekstra, Hans Dagelet, and Rifka Lodeizen. Hoekstra is Hemel, which means 'heaven' in Dutch. The essence of this movie is her quest to determine the difference between sex and love while establish an adult relationship with her father. It is interesting that I once knew a girl who was exactly like Hemel. How does the story develop?
The father is Gijs (Dagelet), a still good-looking and virile late 50s middle class man, a widower who works in high-end auctions and is in the habit of dating attractive younger women. His daughter is Hemel who is 23 and who, it appears, experiments somewhat recklessly with sex in relationships that have no sense of emotional intimacy. Her emotional life, in all its unconventional contours and trouble spots, seems to exist within the boundaries of her friendship with her dad.
Indeed, in most instances here, Hemel resists bonding with her sexual consorts. She taunts them, belittles them, finding their erotic fixations tiresome or invasive. This is shown in episodes or chapters that focus on Hemel’s sexual adventures, mixed with her much less dramatic encounters with Gijs, what finally emerges as the center of the film is a father/daughter story. Late in the film, we find that Hemel is dating an older man, a lover she finds that she can confide in willingly and with an ease she finds sweet and touching. Married to a colleague of her father’s, the man resists long-term commitment, a revelation that Hemel finds shattering.
I recommend seeing Hemel if you like well done, psychological drama.