Dutch director Nanouk Leopold comes into her own as a recognisable auteur with her third feature Wolfsbergen, a kaleidoscopic portrait of a Dutch family that plays to her strengths. Showcasing some of the most talented actors from the Dutch-language area as well as what can now be called Leopold’s signature cinema of silence, Wolfsbergen will find an appreciative niche audience in arthouses that are not afraid of extremely austere, high-quality goods. The film is part of the Forum here at the Berlinale and will probably rake in more money abroad than at home, where, undeservingly, Leopold’s pure cinema is something of an oddity in the local film landscape.

Rather than throwing the entire family in turmoil and fits of hysterics, nothing much happens. Konraad’s daughter Maria (Catherine ten Bruggencate), who cries when she reads the letter, has become estranged from her dentist husband Ernst (Jan Decleir) for an unknown reason and not even allows him into their shared bathroom. She continues to worry about a new flat where she intends to take Konraad as if nothing happened. Their daughter Sabine (Tamar van Dop) is too tired to read the letter at first and then puts off contacting her family members when her husband Onno (Fedja van Huêt, also the husband in Guernsey) informs her of its contents. Sabine’s sister Eva (Karins Smulders), who, after an abortion seems to cry about everything and nothing throughout the day, has not received a letter at all.

 

Though the Netherlands are well-known for allowing euthanasia within its borders, a glut of local Dutch films that treat this subject, including the recent Simon and Ik omhels je met duizend armen (A Thousand Kisses, with Ten Bruggencate in Konraad's situation) suggests the topic is still on the mind of many. The event is not the main theme of Wolfsbergen, however, but rather the entry point into the lives of the characters of the Wolfsbergen family, who all act differently upon hearing Konraad’s news but who are united in the fact they all fail to address it properly, leaving it to the men married into the family (Decleir, van Huêt and Oscar van Woensel, who plays Sabine’s beer-gulping ex) to see to the urgent emotional matters at hand. The women are too absorbed in their own problems, preferring to lie down rather than face the matters head-on, which somewhat ironically gives Konraad the peace he craves.

 

Like Guernsey, Wolfsbergen is not only filled with silences but also about silence. In her cinema, Leopold explores the types of silence that are very much part of life but are often ignored in film:  the awkward silence between strangers or people who realise they barely know each other; the annoying silence between those who have become estranged; the deep-cutting silence after two siblings tell each other the truth or the beneficent silence between two lovers, who need not say a word to each other and can still be perfectly at ease. There is also the silence of being alone with one's thoughts, the deafening silence a person leaves behind after their death and the calm silence and allure of death through euthanasia.

 

The women in Wolfsbergen all seem to cloak themselves in silence as if it were a protective blanket, though often this only furthers their isolation. Konraad, who lives alone in the isolated family mansion surround by fields and forests, even has a broken old turntable that plays his vinyls with short squeaks of silence at every turn. "It doesn’t matter," he says, "As long as you know the music well". His explanation is key for not only his attitude to life but also, if inverted, for Leopold’s view of cinema: we know about the big moments in life and here she concentrates on the small moments, leaving it the viewer to fill in why, for example, Maria and Ernst are not communicating -- though some hints are given in editor Katharina Wartena's fluid alternation between the various storylines.

 

The rigidly composed cinematography, again by Richard van Oosterhout, is majestic and a major element in establishing the right mood. The film’s last scene is a both an incredible directorial coup de théâtre and Van Oosterhout’s moment to shine: a Dutch interior and an Italian master’s Body After the Deposition meet each other in perfect harmony. And again in silence. If you understand the tone of that silence, you will know if it is a happy ending.