MARK OF THE BEAST

Holland, 1980, 98 minutes, Colour.
Gerard Thoolen.
Directed by Pieter Verhoeff.

Mark of the Beast is an example of Dutch filmmaking of the '70s. It is a period melodrama focusing on a murderer and trying to understand him in his context and in his character. While the film has the ingredients of melodrama, it aims at something more in being a study of human nature and society.

1. The quality of the film as character study, insight into society, melodrama and serious dram?

2. The qualities of Dutch production: colour photography, authentic locations, atmosphere, sense of period and history? Musical score?

3. The importance of the information given at beginning and end? The voiceover technique and its effectiveness? The reflection on the action and the characters? Justice?

4. A picture of Dutch society, a town: ordinary, people at work, wealth and poverty, church and religion, socialising e.g. the dancers? Scandal or lack of scandal in Dutch society?

5. Yje and his attitudes, reading, sense of elitism? His intellect and his insights? Themes of freedom? His antagonism towards religion? His philosophising? His animal passion? Play, his friends, etc.? His mother and brother?

6. Yje as a character in a drama, as a characterisation of a type? His sullenness, work, the play, the visit to the woman, the encounter with her husband? The possibility of non involvement?

7. The arrest, the involvement, the resistance? The children? The seduction? His staying? Passion, the 14 days? The change in the housekeeper? His mother and brother?

8. The picture of the family: flirting, drunkenness, the visit and the records, his arrest, the children and their observation? The woman and her need, desperation? The birthday party?

9. The importance of the friend and the support? The play, the wedding?

10. Themes of church and religion? Religious? stances? His brother?

11. The mother, needs, bonds, church and religion, hurt?

12. The police and interference?

13. The courts, the build-up, the police? Hysterics, shooting, madness?

14. The justice of the situation, in theory, in practice? The study of a character? The credibility of such a character in such society?