CLEAN HANDS/ SCHONE HANDEN

Netherlands, 2015, 108 minutes, Colour.
Jeroen van Koeningsbrugge, Thekla Reuten.
Directed by Tjebbo Penning.

Clean Hands is a focused Dutch thriller on drug dealing, centring on a family, the husband a dealer, the wife in some ways colluding but, as violence intervenes and their home life is disrupted, she decides to leave her husband. But, the main dealers think that she knows too much and so they pursue her, and put pressure on her husband.

Familiar material but interesting in the Dutch setting.

1. An interesting Dutch thriller? Drug deals, money, brutality? Repercussions for ordinary families and citizens?

2. Amsterdam settings, the city, streets and canals, homes, drug deal locations, airports and railway stations? The musical score?

3. The title – with reference to each of the main characters?


4. Introduction to the family, enjoying the day at the beach, Eddie and Sylvia, the children, an ordinary day? Eddie and his disappearance?, The barbecue, Eddie and his friends?

5. Interrogation by the police, Eddie lying, Sill and her protecting Eddie and the family? The continued pursuit by the police? A friend, the anxiety of his wife, the truth about his being killed? The funeral? Syl and her care for the widow?

6. Eddie, his brother supporting him, the contacts, the dealers, the hitmen, Eddie and the risks, his drinking and taking drugs, becoming less controlled? Yet his love for his wife and family? At home, picking up the kids – but his daughter seeing him bashing? His son finding the gun and the money? His getting deeper into debt, his debtors and their not paying up to him, his not being able to pay his creditors, the demands, the attacks, the shooting in the street? His son being in the car? His brother and new deals? Frans and his coming from the West Indies, his proposal, the money, Eddie taking it? Eddie and his violent attack on Frans? Becoming more desperate? Wanting to buy the beach resort for his wife, failing?

7. Syl, the devoted wife, knowing some of the truth, not giving any information to the police? Her love her children? Love for Eddie, taking the children to her mother, the return, Eddie and his promise about the beach club, about the holiday? Seeing her son with the gun? Her concern about her daughter, fighting at school, too tall for ballet, the jazz ballet? The visit from Frans? Her belief that Eddie was getting out? Her disillusionment, packing, Eddie intervening? Her going to her friend’s house, her friend and his son?

8. The family packing, going to the airport, Syl taking the money from Eddie’s hole, buying the tickets? The son running away? Wanting his father?

9. Eddie, becoming more desperate, reassuring the family, in the car, the irony of his son shooting him? The rest getting away, at the airport, no information for the police?

10. The family settled in a new place, the visit from the drug dealer, getting his hair cut, Syl not taking the money, the ending and the open threat to her and the family?

11. A story from the Netherlands but an international story?