“For me it’s important to note that the film’s information is also the only thing you know. That’s the idea of the tip of the iceberg, provided that only the portion above the water exists (in the film), because you know nothing of what’s under water and therefore it’s impossible for you to describe the entire iceberg.
For example, in De nieuwe ijstijd the characters are not described 'in their entirety'. What is shown is only what we’ve encountered when we were filming. It’s always a limited, fragmentary knowledge of everything that exists, and that’s how it’s shown.”De nieuwe ijstijd [The New Ice Age] (Johan van der Keuken, 1974)
Mar
16
Reykjavík Food & Fun Festival
A young female factory worker listlessly fills a long plastic tube with pale ice-cream.. DP: Johan van der Keuken.
Ice or cold food to celebrate the final day of the Reykjavík Food & Fun Festival
– Johan van der Keuken, via
Part three of Van der Keuken's Noord-Zuid trilogy. Again we are confronted with the contrast between the First and Third world, here represented by a Dutch family of monotonous ice-cream factory hands, and impoverished Peruvian workers establishing self-governance, accompanied by Willem Breuker's punching free jazz cacophony.
JohanVanDerKeuken
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“Aaaaap”
“Nooot”
“Miiieees”
Het Leesplankje [The Reading Lesson] (Johan van der Keuken, 1973)
Mar
2
National Read Across America Day
Reading board tiles laid out on a newspaper. Half a headline – 7.000 ARRESTANTEN (“7000 DETAINEES”) – can be read. A photograph of a shellshocked, very young soldier in front of a fleeing crowd illustrates the article. DP: Johan van der Keuken.
Amsterdam schoolchildren recite the words from a reading board while the traditional teaching method's pictures are interspersed with news photos of then-current events and children's drawings.
This short, and life, is haunting and violent; schools should be safe for all. Even if only to escape in a book.