De zee die denkt (2000) User Reviews

3.5 stars

[mweston · 8/10 · 18 April 2002]

The plot doesn't begin to describe the film: a man is writing a film, or rather, *this* film. It's totally self referential to the point that you think it's going to fold in on itself like a black hole. The writer writes something and it happens, or something happens and he writes about it.

It's very philosophical, like "Waking Life" but more Zen oriented and for that matter, much better, in my opinion. At one point there are person-on-the-street interviews and then you see shots of these people being filmed, and then you discover that their responses are scripted when one keeps flubbing her lines. There is beautiful scenery and optical illusions.

I hope it comes out on DVD so I can watch it again more carefully. Seen at Cinequest (the San Jose, CA film festival) on 2/25/2002.

deliberately confusing movie mixes beauty with dispair

[manfred-8 · 8/10 · 26 December 2000]

This movie is a journey through the mind of a screenwriter caught in his own paradoxical philosophy. He examines the ever illusive question of 'who am I' and 'what is I?' It's a courageous and thought provoking enterprise. There is a shipload of beautiful images, dream-inspired, Escher-like paradoxes reminiscent of the hand drawing itself, or rather, erasing itself. More and more we follow the writer in his agony over what to say and what to film, we see him phoning with his wife who left for Peru, leaving him to take care of their baby, a task he performs with less and less attention until he's so absorbed in his dilemma's that he hardly looks at the child anymore. His wife comes back and makes a scene, destroys his notes and helping him go over the last treshold until he erases him-self. Interspersed with eye-pleasing and I-destructing images, the story is mainly philosophical. It's about the veils of Maya, the world of illusion. The paradox of the movie however, is that it needs a lot of talking and thinking to prove that thinking should stop. During the more than two hours of provocative beauty and rapid philosophising the movie made me long for silence or a shorter movie. If that was the purpose of the maker, he succeeded quite well.

read about this captivating and fun-filled 100 minutes feature

[gdg · 10/10 · 1 May 2001]

We all create our own reality, or do we? That is the core question behind this highly original and masterfully crafted examination of the illusionary nature of reality. Blending Eastern and Buddhist philosophies with the visual chicanery of M.C. Escher, this fascinating treatise manages to take on the rather cerebral question of 'Who are we and what is our place in the universe?', and turn it into a captivating and fun-filled 100 minutes. The film centers on Bart, a writer struggling with his screenplay, 'The Sea That Thinks.' As he sits at his computer, the work begins to unfold as nothing more than a description of his sitting at the computer, writing the screenplay. Before long he is stuck in a whirling conundrum in which everything he writes becomes reality. Director Gert de Graaff approaches his subject with an impish sense of humor and dazzles the viewer with a series of astounding visual tricks that confront the nature and validity of our perception. Ultimately, de Graaff's film challenges the audience at several levels to question whether anything we see or touch or taste is really what it appears to be, or whether our entire understanding of the universe and our place in it is merely a trick played on us by our senses.

7/10. Only for a specific audience

[athanasiosze · 7/10 · 25 March 2024]

I though this was gonna be a 100 minutes advertisement of Buddhism or something like that. Not that there is anything wrong with that, i just not that interested in Eastern philosophies. I am a non native English speaker so i can't effectively communicate my ideas. Let's just say that the the doctrine of "non-self is potentially dangerous not only for the people individually but even for the whole society. Still there are some positives of course.

In any case, this movie is something more than a "proselytism". Last 20-30 minutes are very intriguing. You see the conflict between this man and his wife. And this was the most interesting part. I liked the fact that this movie raises questions and gives less answers than you might think at first. Is it possible to lose ourselves when we live in a society? Is it even something we must attempt? It's true that the world around us is a distraction, even disorientation i'd say. It's true that it's getting more and more confusing. And we might lose what's really important for ourselves when we constantly let the outside voices become our own, inner voices. But what's the goal here? To lose ourselves or to find them?

I gave it a high rating even though i don't necessarily agree with movie's philosophy. It's nice though when a movie makes you contemplate.

This stylistically sophisticated visual game presents ‘a story within a story'.

[gdg · 10/10 · 5 November 2001]

This stylistically sophisticated visual game presents ‘a story within a story'. The protagonist is scriptwriter Bart Klever who fights persistently with his new text – which is, at the same time, the screenplay of the film we're watching. In the movie Bart plays a scriptwriter writing the script of the film… Bart's struggle with the text becomes a narrative theme, as does the environment of the flat where he works and takes care of his little girl. The intimate environment offers ample opportunity for games of illusion involving space, light, colours and a couple of cats. The outwardly simple world of the room is further complicated by the unstable dimensions of a text continually influenced by the filmmaker's interventions, which appears on a computer monitor and serves as a counterpoint to the similarity mutable environment. The constantly changing viewing angle complicates answers to questions which arise: What is ‘truth' and what ‘illusion' ? Which of the observed worlds is primary and superior to the rest? Can anything serve as a basic orientation point in the narrative space?

reality or illusion? this film asks, and SHOWS the answer

[flem-7 · 10/10 · 26 December 2000]

to communicate in film essential things of life - like what is life, does it have a meaning? - is sheer impossible. Of course possible answers to these questions are demonstrated in every film (story), but communication needs a direct appeal to consciousness. This happens if the input from the senses overrules the "input" from our mind, i.e. our thoughts. Few directors know how to communicate essential things. Tarkovsky, is one. His "Stalker" shows images of existence, communicates life as it shows itself and yet escapes your mind. I think De Zee and De Graaff do the same.

too silly to even be pretentious

[tezzzaaa · 4/10 · 10 August 2002]

I won't spend a lot of time nor energy on this comment. I just want to add it because all the comments were so positive I felt like I just had to let people know that not everyone is so thrilled, let alone intellectually provoked by this attempt at creating a captivating philosophical cinematic enigma. Some scenes seemed promising, playing with visual dimensions, but couldn't hold up the rest. I felt like I was stoned for the first time again, having semi-philosophical conversations with fellow adolescents.

What a futile attempt to raise Dutch cinema to new heights. I'd rather watch Jesus is een Palestijn, without all the pretentions and with straight forward humor, also raising questions about life and the realities we create for ourselves.

Gert de Graff is not Jean-Luc Godard or Tarkovsky and appearantly never will be.

Is he a brilliant prophet or someone possessed?

[neetje · 9/10 · 17 October 2001]

One is tempted to define the genre of Gert de Graaff's movie as `event of the thought' following the example of Merab Mamardashvili. The nominal storyline is a certain Bart Klever's torturous quest for that ephemeral substance which constitutes the essence of personality. The script for his new movie is taking shape simultaneously on his computer and in his own imagination. This film-monologue originated as a response to Fellini's `8 ½' and cost Gert de Graaff 13 years of work. Excitedly playing with real and fictional characters as well as with the audience, it reveals the whimsical interconnection of the real and imaginary, the paradoxical co-existence in two different galaxies: that of Guttenberg and that of MacLhuen. For some time we are apt to side with the script writer, who believes that the cause of all misfortune is the damned stereotypes of mass mentality (`man', `catholic', `window washer'). And together with him we fall into a trap when the author-creator is finally faced with the insoluble dilemma: how can one eliminate from the future movie. Bart Klever? Just five minutes before the finale thanks to the common petty reproaches of the wife of the creator, who is deeply immersed in work, we realize that together with the main character we have again been `framed'. Really, what is the price of the art for the sake of which it is acceptable to renounce one's own name and the day-to-day care for the young daughter?

So who is he, this Bart Klever? Is he a brilliant prophet or someone possessed like Frenhoffer from Balzac's masterpiece (just like the latter the script writer in the end erases from the computer memory everything has written)? Gert de Graaff suggests that we answer this question ourselves.