Helen Hedy

"The Great Magician" - A portrait of Frans Zwartjes (1927-2017), sometimes called 'the most important experimental filmmaker of his time' by the American essayist Susan Sontag.

After Bernd (Cas Enklaar) picks up his daughter Walyne (Tara Fallaux) who lives with her mother, he takes her off for a supposed day of fun together. His idea of fun is to get his hands on as much free alcohol as he can, and as a result of his carelessness he and his daughter are constantly separated. Each time they reunite, he finds a new group of people for a few more drinks, and another round starts -- as a consequence, there is no build-up to the climax at the end.

This film is dominated by an icy blue. In a monumental building a group of scientists submit women to obscure experiments, in which sexuality and cruelty constantly merge into one another. When the film was released, this horrifying game of power and powerlessness was condemned severely by a militant group of feminists. The criticism was undeserved. After all, 'Pentimento' is an art-historical term for a hidden image underneath the actual image giving an indication of how the latter evolved to its current state. The film does not endorse the lopsided power relations in our world but actually challenges them.