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Verhoeven/Soetman's Spetters is a variation on Saturday Night Fever, a depiction of youth in their age, but unlike the latter film it accomplishes more by serving as a criticism of the entire society it depicts.
This criticism (whether conscious or not) is most obvious in the story of Rien Hartman, who kills himself not because he is in a wheelchair per se but because he can no longer get it up, even when his girlfriend tries to give him a blowjob. His manliness and potence is so important to him in this smalltown macho culture that he does not feel human without an erect penis. Of course plenty of people are disabled and live decent lives, but many are able to release their frustration over what they had by finding an inner peace through meditation or something similar. Rien never even considers such a thing because his culture does not allow it. The only religious outlet he has is the occult version of "Christianity" that is depicted in the film, a kind of extroverted showy social religion with nothing to offer the inner soul of the individual except temporary escape. Rien refuses to accept even this, both due to his own internal weakness and also due to its social character, which he feels shamed by.
Verhoeven depicts a world with only fake spirituality and no real values except for crusade and conquest. Sexual predation/conquest, financial opportunism, hypocritical preachers, reporters and businessmen are plentiful, but there is little give and take. People take action with limited vision, seeing only themselves and their own interests rather than a larger humanity or their place in it.
In SNF, the girl is a pathetic hanger-on who is raped in the end by her own friends for fun, because to them she is worth nothing because she gives herself no worth. In Spetters, the girl is strong but opportunistic, and there is a scene where you see the complexity and guilt of her character underneath the facade. The sexual stuff is accomplished with the closeted homosexual character, who is brutally raped for sport, and then ironically becomes gay because of it.
As in SNF, but in a more artistic and ironic way, the values are all skewed for these people. But in SNF, dancing provides a temporary outlet for this macho culture, and ultimately it seems that there is escape for the main character if he can just get out of his class. There is escape possible for the woman in Spetters too, yet it isn't clear that the escape will be better than the current reality, and the only one who really escapes is the predatory brother.
In any case, as one of the better "social" films of the past 40 years, I give it 10 stars.
score 10/10
tdesai99 9 June 2007
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1670698/ |
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24-2-2021 00:05:17