The Dark Room of Damocles (1963) User Reviews

Finally after 40 years receiving the recognition it deserves.

[Boba_Fett1138 · 8/10 · 19 September 2004]

Before 2002 this movie was very rarely shown. Producer Alfred Heineken (better known as Freddie Heineken, yes indeed THE big man behind the famous Dutch beer brewery) had forbidden all public showings of this movie, with the exception of a few cinematic showings and one appearance on Dutch television. Reason for this was that his mistress Nan Los played in the film. So in a way this movie has always been hidden for the public till the death of Heineken in 2002, a shame because it's a pretty good war drama!

The first halve of the movie is very standard stuff. Typical WW II Dutch drama stuff you can say. The second halve however was very good! The story became tense and even mysterious and had a few surprising twists and a very excellent ending!

Lex Schoorel is a very irritating leading man as Ducker however as Dorbeck, who is also played by him, he is strangely enough very good. It's no coincidence that after this he appeared rarely in any other notable movies, with the exception of the television show "Floris" directed by Paul Verhoeven and staring Rutger Hauer and the failed but well known movie "Grijpstra & De Gier" also with Rutger Hauer and Rijk de Gooyer. The rest of the cast consist mainly out of fairly unknown actors with the exception of Sacco van der Made and Piet Römer who received most of their fame in the 90's. All of the acting performances reminded me of those from Hollywood movies made in the 40's and 50's. The movie besides looks even more outdated because it's in black & white.

The editing is at times very weird and the sound is also pretty messed up at times. This movie is certainly not as good as Fons Rademakers other Dutch war drama, the Academy Award winning movie "De Aanslag" with Derek de Lint and most definitely not as good as Paul Verhoeven's masterpiece "Soldaat van Oranje". But the second halve and certainly the ending make this movie a very solid war drama with an excellent story.

Worth seeing if you get the chance.

8/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

A final scene who ruins it all

[frankde-jong · 7/10 · 1 March 2024]

Fons Rademakers is a famous Dutch director. He was the first Dutch director to win an Oscar in the category "Best foreign language movie" with "The assault" (1986). His most well known movies are adaptations of famous Dutch writers. "The assault" is based on a novel by Harry Mulisch and "Max Havelaar" (1976) is based on a novel by Multatuli alias Eduard Douwes Dekker.

"The dark room of Damocles" (1963) is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Willem Frederik Hermans. By 2024 this novel was still in the top 10 of Dutch literature.

As often happens, in the end the writer was not completely satisfied with the final result of the film. In my opinion this final result, with one exception about which more later on, adequately shows the essential elements of the book. These essential elements are:

An avarage person, even a person on the brink of being a loser in peace time, suddenly becomes a member of the resistence in the war.

The novel illustrates the avarage person / loser element by the fact that Ducker (his name) has an ordinary job (running a cigar shop, often the job of a retired socker player), that his wife cheats on him with the neighbor but most of all by emphasizing the fact that Ducker has no facial hair.

In the resisance group he belongs to Ducker gets his orders from his look-alike Dorbeck. It never becomes fully clear if Dorbeck is only an inner voice or a real existing person.

The novel illustraties this element by keeping the visits of Dorbeck always short and most of all by making Dorbeck immune to a camera. All the photographs with Dorbeck on it gets lost or miscarry. In this respect Dorbeck is almost a vampire.

After the war the acts of resistance of Ducker are interpreted as acts of betrayal. As a witness in his defence Ducker tries to find Dorbeck, but in vain.

This is in my opinion the most clever element of the movie. Just like in "The sixth sense" (1999, M. Night Shyamalan) one has to watch the film a second time to convince oneself that indeed some of Ducker's acts (or at least their consequences) could be interpreted as betrayal.

The final scene of the film is however a serious mistake, in more than one respect: It is highly inprobable.

It destroys the multiple interpretability of the story, which was one of its gems.

It is not faithful to the novel.

If the dissatisfaction of writer Willem Frederik Hermans was directed specifically against this final scene, I do agree with him.

This film is as good as the novel

[jos-destrooper · 8 November 2003]

Wilfried Hermans is a good writer but this script is good and the movie is good also. There is something mysterious about this film-making. The director Fons Rademakers did manage to keep even more suspense than in the original book as if he gave the movie its own soul. The story could really had happen. At the end one cannot accept how the main figure is lost but it was a difficult task to end this movie with two people resembling each other so well. The SD-officer is fanatic as he should be and the resistance looses a lot of their men by the stupidity of our "hero".

Ineffective World War II mystery based on "De Donkere Kamer van Damocles" by W. F. Hermans

[Camera-Obscura · 13 November 2006]

LIKE TWO DROPS OF WATER (Fons Rademakers - Netherlands 1963).

Interesting for a number of reasons, mainly because of the circumstances surrounding the production. The film was based on two novels, "De Donkere Kamer van Damocles" (1958) and to a lesser extent his earlier "De Tranen der Acacias" (1948), by what is considered one of the most important Dutch writers of the twentieth century, Willem Frederik Hermans, both featuring more or less the same characters. Secondly, the director Fons Rademakers is considered to be the first "real" Dutch director of narrative features. He made a total of eleven films and would win the Oscar for best foreign film in 1984 with THE ASSAULT.

After a reasonably successful release in 1963 with almost 500,000 visitors and competing at the Cannes Film Festival, it was withdrawn from circulation almost immediately by Freddy Heineken, the beer magnate and producer of the film, reportedly because he had an affair with one of the film's stars, Nan Los. When she learned Freddy Heineken would never divorce his wife, she married a race driver instead, and Heineken decided the film would never be shown publicly again. I am not sure what the situation is right now, but till his death, you had to write him in person for a private screening. Dutch broadcasting cooperation the TROS tried to air the film in 1983, but was held back by Freddy Heineken. It was shown once before though, on July 4th 1966 at the NTS, on Dutch television and, most recently, in September 2003.

Camera Obscura --- 5/10