If one were to judge the state of the Dutch film industry by the number of Oscar nominations and wins in the past fifteen years (four nominations and three wins for the Oscar virgins) one would say it would be on par with the French or Italian film industry. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. The Dutch film industry only makes a dozen or so films a year, it just happens that the quality of Dutch films seems to be higher, perhaps since the output is so low. Dutch films are also more likely to have an international appeal since they almost always needs financing from abroad. There are very few "light" Dutch movies such as (romantic) comedies;  drama seems to be an easier genre in terms of market crossover.

De tweeling (Twin Sisters) is clearly a drama (and also a co-production with Luxembourg) and has been put forward by the Netherlands as it Oscar-contender for best foreign film (it would eventually be nominated, ed.). The story has been adapted from the novel by Tessa de Loo and tells the story of two twin sisters, Lotte and Anna, who are born in 1930s Germany. Their mother dies soon after their birth and when they are six years old they loose their father too. They are separated by the remaining family members; Lotte, who is often ill, is sent off to the rich part of the family living in the Netherlands while Anna stays with an uncle and aunt who run a poor farm.

At the beginning of the film, however, we are in the present and find ourselves at the health-resort of Spa in Belgium. Lotte, now in old age, hears someone sing a song she used to sing when she and her sister were little girls. Really against her will she strikes up a conversation with the elder German lady singing it. It turns out this is her own sister Anna, and as soon Lotte has discovered this, it becomes clear that she wants to have nothing to do at all with her twin sister. She tries to flee,  but still in Spa she walks in to her again while on a walk in the woods and finally, after much insistence by Anna, they sit down to talk about what happened in all these years.

Anna grew up in Germany in the nineteen thirties having to work very hard for her uncle and when she sees and opportunity to escape and work in the city she takes it with both hands. She falls in love with an Austrian officer as Hitler becomes more powerful. In the Netherlands, her sister grows up to become a Dutch young lady in a loving family, and she falls in love with a cute Jewish boy. Things go topsy-turvy when the Second World War breaks out and the two sisters find themselves on two different sides. Anna’s Austrian husband is killed in the war and Lotte’s boyfriend is gassed in the concentration camp gas chambers. They have had little contact before the war and after the war is over, Lotte refuses to see Anna because the way Lotte sees it, Anna has killed her boyfriend.

This very heavy subject is treated with a good deal of delicacy in this sensitive and emotive film from Dutch director Ben Sombogaart. One of the major things it has going for it, is that it shows the war that went on in the daily lives of common people, not people on the battlefield or in the concentration camps. As do Anna and Lotte, the common people knew people that fought or were deported, but what remained for them at home was only fear and insecurity. There are no explosions or scenes in concentration camps in this movie: the characters that go there just disappear from the picture, as they did from the lives of the people they left behind.

This story, already magnificently told by Tessa de Loo in her great and compex novel offers scope to explore the war from two sides: it becomes very clear that there is not one clear winning or losing side in any war. Leaders of nations may have  decided to go to war, but the common people have to suffer for it and even family bonds can sometimes not be strong enough to keep people together.

The film's cinematography by Piotr Kukla is stunning: it shows us the world of the two six year old sisters as warm and fuzzy, the world during the war as cold and the world of today in normal colours. Of the main actresses, the young Anna (German actress Nadja Uhl) and Old Lotte (Dutch actress Ellen Vogel) leave a lasting impression. This war film without a single explosion is about what war does to people’s thinking and reasoning and how war can lead to prejudice that can even break the bonds of sisterhood. Overall, a highly commendable film.

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