Numéro 10 (2024)

Numéro 10

Alex van Warmerdam’s latest feature is called No. 10, but that doesn’t tell you much about the movie. It’s his tenth film and no more than that; if anything, it might better be described as a numbered object than a titled one given how slippery its story is. The pacing and atmosphere are assured on a technical level, as with most of van Warmerdam’s work, and the first half has a real sense of intrigue: minor theater actor Günter (Tom Dewispelaere) is having an affair with his leading lady Isabel (Anniek Pheifer), who is also the wife of Karl (Hans Kesting), the writer/director of the play he’s currently rehearsing. Marius (Pierre Bokma), Günter’s rival, an incompetent amateur with an ailing wife, eventually catches them in flagrante; Günter’s grown daughter Lizzy (Frieda Barnhard) is suspicious too; once Karl gets hip to it he starts tormenting Günter within the framework of the play they’re putting on.

Van Warmerdam makes excellent use of the vacant industrial-tinged setting of this Dutch city, which gives everything an extra frisson of cold claustrophobia not to mention an overall suggestion that these people have no excuse for their behavior except for pure boredom and all the various interiors tend towards grayishness. Hovering over everything is Günter’s provenance, mentioned in passing early on as having been raised by foster parents after being found wandering in a forest when he was five years old, which eventually takes over entirely with another set of characters including two Catholic priests and some guys who slink around like secret agents or whatever. By the time we get to what happened to him though this part of the story has taken over completely and next thing you know we’re back in some other plot entirely.

I don’t know what to make of this movie, which seems experimental in the sense that it doesn’t really need to be a narrative work of art; you could cut it in half at any point and lose no meaning because these two storylines are so alien to one another. Put together they’re just baffling, especially as neither amounts to anything like a conclusion: the love affair is over by the time Günter’s story is revealed and then the stage play never even happens. It’s my first van Warmerdam though I’ve heard of him he seems like he must be a major figure in Dutch cinema or something and most of what I’ve heard suggests that he’s not for everyone now I see why. But still not who this would be for.

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