BarBara Hanlo

A modest and loving portrait of a small enclave of old-fashioned beach huts by the North Sea. The sound track is fragments of conversations with the inhabitants, who themselves are not seen on screen; the protagonists on screen are the huts, the beach and the sea. And, only a stone’s throw away, the heavy industry of the Hoogovens furnaces.

In an inventive and above all cinematographic and essayist way, Als een vlieg naar de vlam tries to solve a riddle. Why did a young lady from very affluent circles in 19th century The Hague choose an extremely dangerous life? Why did that lady in the era of salons and corsets set off for the African desert? The film is about the life of Alexandrine Pieternella Françoise Tinne (1835-1869). In the 19th century there were more explorers from noble or at least affluent backgrounds that set off for the blank spots on what was then the map of the world, but Alexandrine Tinne was still fairly unusual as a woman.

Impressionistic, nightmarish images of a traveller in the Danube delta who looks for 'the man in the house behind the swamp' from the story of the same name by Dutch author A. Alberts. When he moors at an island with a house on it that used to be the executed dictator Ceausescu's country cottage, reality and imagination converge at this remarkable place. The occupant is disturbed by the unwanted guest. When it gets dark, he disappears into the house. He is watched through the slightly open door. In the end, he sits down to dinner and it turns out the table has been set for three. The invisible third person is the host's imaginary lover. Loneliness and booze prevail. When the traveller's delirium is at its height, the swamp becomes the dominant factor.

Based on a vision by Hildegard von Bingen.