{"id":5906,"date":"2015-10-09T23:59:13","date_gmt":"2015-10-09T22:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/?p=5906"},"modified":"2015-10-27T09:38:49","modified_gmt":"2015-10-27T08:38:49","slug":"schneider-vs-bax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2015\/10\/09\/schneider-vs-bax\/","title":{"rendered":"Schneider vs. Bax"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Schneider<\/a>
Schneider vs. Bax<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

\nFormat:<\/B> Cinema

\nFirst seen at
L’Etrange Festival 2015<\/a><\/b>
\nPart of LFF 2015<\/a><\/b>

\nDirector:<\/B> Alex van Warmerdam

\nWriter:<\/B> Alex van Warmerdam

\nCast:<\/B> Tom Dewispelaere, Alex van Warmerdam, Loes Haverkort, Maria Kraakman

\nNetherlands 2015

\n96 mins\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

After the haunting and otherworldly Borgman<\/I>, presented two years ago at L’Étrange Festival, Alex van Warmerdam \u2013 the enfant chéri<\/I> of the festival \u2013 returned this year with Schneider vs. Bax<\/I>, only to win the Grand Prix. As suggested by the title, the film\u2019s plot is built around the duel between two contract killers hired by the same employer to do each other in. The film starts with the two protagonists waking. Schneider (Tom Dewispelaere) \u2013 allegedly an engineer \u2013 is woken up by his beautiful wife (Loes Haverkort) and children on his birthday, and has to cancel his day off because of a phone call from his boss Mertens (Gene Bervoets). Ramon Bax, a solitary writer living in an isolated house by a lake in the middle of a swamp, is woken up by the thought of his daughter Francisca\u2019s (Maria Kraakman) imminent visit, and unmannerly chases away his young mistress, Nadine (Eva van de Wijdeven), to avoid an embarrassing encounter.<\/p>\n

Long before the duel is put in place, Warmerdam establishes the comic nature of his film, when Mertens clumsily falls from his chair and accidentally knocks himself out after Schneider\u2019s phone call. From there on, a long series of unexpected twists and blunders complicates the trap originally set for Schneider, in a way reminiscent of Édouard Molinaro\u2019s A Pain in the Ass<\/I> (1973). <\/p>\n

Yet Warmerdam does not play by the rules of the hitman genre. He remains faithful to his criticism of the Dutch middle classes, and in this dark, social-comedy thriller, we go through every stage of a family crisis: the grown-up daughter\u2019s depression, the father\u2019s drug abuse, the grandfather\u2019s incest, to name but a few.<\/p>\n

Once again, Warmerdam succeeds in creating a perfect, absurd mix of very realistic action and very unrealistic sequences of cause-and-effect, the accumulation of which fuels the plot. The mystery of Borgman<\/I> gives way here to exhilarating comedy, indulging in some delightfully trashy jokes, as when Nadine returns with her friend Jules, who threatens to crush Bax under his thumb, only to have his thumb shot off a few minutes later.<\/p>\n

In Schneider vs. Bax<\/I> Warmerdam yields to nature\u2019s call, which was already budding in his previous films. The gardens, forests and countryside there provided a counterpoise to the urban, middle-class setting that Warmerdam is so keen on satirising (the countryside is also an occasional burying ground). This film was shot on location in a nature reserve, and the choice of the wild marshes deeply affects the aesthetics of the film, which moves away from the usual Hopper\/Tati-like atmosphere. Much more than in The Last Days of Emma Blank<\/I> (2009), the exceptionally picturesque landscape has enabled Warmerdam to achieve an unprecedented level of mastery in articulating elements of the plot with visual effects. Bax\u2019s white, immaculate lakeside house (contrasting with his profession) is made even brighter by the fact that the house has a glass roof to let more light in. The obsessive cleanliness of the interior is almost uncanny, especially as Bax returns there all muddy from the swamps, without affecting the pristine state of the house. This is perhaps the most original of Warmerdam\u2019s aesthetic choices: rather than a chiaroscuro<\/I> reflecting the moral stakes of the protagonists, the screen is overwhelmed by the unchallenged brightness of the swamps in broad daylight, which thus paradoxically enhances the film\u2019s dark atmosphere and the characters\u2019 no less dark motivations. No pathetic fallacy here \u2013 the weather remains sunny all through the fight between Schneider and Bax, and the different deaths that occur in its course, even until the film\u2019s \u2018happy ending\u2019, when Schneider returns home to his \u2018perfect\u2019 family, who are blissfully ignorant of the pater familias\u2019<\/I>s profession.<\/p>\n

Pierre Kapitaniak<\/I><\/B><\/p>\n

This review is part of our Etrange Festival<\/a>\/LFF 2015<\/a> coverage.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The director of Borgman<\/i> returns with a socially conscious and blackly humorous crime thriller.
\nReview by Pierre Kapitaniak<\/I><\/B><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,6],"tags":[1253,1254,1252,94,1251,63],"class_list":["post-5906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-check-it-out","category-festivals","tag-alex-van-warmerdam","tag-borgman","tag-contract-killer","tag-crime-thriller","tag-dark-humour","tag-thriller"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","wps_subtitle":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/purUP-1xg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5646,"url":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2015\/08\/04\/marshland\/","url_meta":{"origin":5906,"position":0},"title":"Marshland","author":"Pam Jahn","date":"August 4, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Alberto Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s atmospheric thriller is a terrifically well-crafted sunshine noir. 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