Piet Bakker

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Separated from his father and neglected by his mother, Ciske spends most of his time getting into scrapes on the streets of Amsterdam.

Ciske de Rat - the Musical, based on Piet Bakker's trilogy, not only tells the famous story of Ciske, the boy with a heart of gold and his cheeky antics, but also how Ciske fares as an adult.

Lovable Amsterdam street urchin, 11 year old Ciske is nevertheless much in need of love as the Dutch 1984 title suggests. He is a scamp with a heart of gold. He causes havoc in the classroom pouring ink over his teacher yet when a polio-crippled boy joins the class Ciske is one of the only children to befriend him and is bullied as a result. His mother works in a bar and Ciske helps out often late into the night - his father is at sea and his mother supplements her income with prostitution. Ciske is also a very angry young man and he smoulders with rage at life's injustices.

“Ciske de Rat” belongs to the Dickensean “little man’s hard life” model and tells a deceptively simple story about a boy in modern Netherlands. Persecution, loneliness, adults’ hostility, fear, mixture of obstinacy and tenderness, and even an imprisonment. Excellent camera movement and delicate portraying of Ciske’s fragile soul put this film out of merely historical context and ensure its place in the history of great cinema.

Heintje Blom, a simple working woman, is told to move into a villa in a posh part of town. The inhabitants are none too pleased, but in spite of the class division a romance blossoms between the rich family’s son and Heintje’s daughter. The two families warm to each other in the end and the happy pair is united in wedded bliss. This comedy about the post-war housing shortage marked the return of the feature length Dutch film to the cinemas.