Directed By: Andre Delvaux
Written By: Anna De Pagter, from novel by Johan Daisne
Main Cast: Senne Rouffaer, Beata Tyszkiewicz, Hector Camerlynck, Annemarie Van Dijk, Francois Bernard
Note: Way back in the latter months of 2009, when my journey first began and I was moving through the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" book in chronological order, I watched many movies on YouTube. My goal then was stick to as strict a chronology as possible and in not wanting to skip anything, I took to YouTube often. When I started moving through the text in a more random fashion, I had initially made the decision to leave YouTube movie watching as a last resort option. Well, I have come to the realization that it just won't be possible to rule out YouTube and in not wanting to be stuck watching many movies in a row, in front of my screen, at the end of my journey, I've decided that I need to start sporadically searching YouTube for unfound movies and watching them, as such. Thus begins the "It Came From YouTube" series, which you'll see pop up from time to time. This is the first...
IT CAME FROM YOUTUBE
I actually found this online last night, as my wife was watching a television program that I wasn't interested in seeing. I decided to do some random net surfing and as I often do, I found myself on YouTube.
Govert Miereveld (Rouffaer) is a professor at a Belgian school. As the film starts, we realize right away that Miereveld has an infatuation with a girl named Fran (Tyszkiewicz) and as the film progresses we realize that Fran is one of his pupils. During the graduation ceremony at the school, Miereveld is troubled, as he realizes that this could be the last time he ever sees Fran, as she is set to graduate. Miereveld tries his best to work up the courage to speak to her, but ultimately fails and graduation ends with Miereveld still stewing with his own emotions. Unable to cope with his undying infatuation and unable to forget about Fran, Miereveld decides it best to relocate, changing his job and moving his wife Corra (Van Dijk) and their two children to another town, where Miereveld becomes a clerk of the courts. There, he befriends a medical examiner named Mr. Mato (Camerlynck), who, one day, invites him to the country to witness an autopsy. In the country, Miereveld and company decide to spend the night at a hotel, where Miereveld unexpectedly runs into Fran.
The title of this film is one that really makes you take notice and for me, it's one that really enticed me, as I wanted to know what this film, with the unusual name was all about. While I really can't decipher the meaning of the unusual title, other than the obvious reasons (at one point in the film, Miereveld DOES indeed have his hair cut short), I am quite confident that I did understand this, sometimes complicated, film. Since I can't find an explanation of this films plot anywhere online, allow me to share my own thoughts and decoding here...
SPOILER ALERT!
To me, the only logical explanation is that Miereveld is, in a word, insane. Well, maybe "insane" is too harsh a word, maybe "not altogether there" would be a more suitable phrase. If you watch this film and you start to get lost around the last thirty minutes or so, then you've missed a key piece in unlocking the mystery. When the film opens, Miereveld is sitting on his office couch, thinking about Fran and repeating her name over and over in his head. We see a brief glimpse of Fran, her hair mussed up and falling in her face and sitting in front of, what appears to be a window, the light glimmering in behind her. That's your key to unlocking the mystery, because when the film nears it's end and Miereveld "shoots" Fran, we see the same image of Fran, as she sits in the window, after having just been "shot". It eludes to the fact that Miereveld had this image of Fran in his head the entire time. Maybe, he didn't have the "shooting her" idea down pat yet, but he had this visual of Fran, sitting in a window, in his head and we know it's coming from his head, because when we first see it, he's alone. Let's keep digging....
As far as I can surmise, the film drifts in and out of sanity as it progresses. I don't think the ENTIRE film is a figment of Miereveld's twisted psyche, but I do think that a lot of it is. I think there's a very clear point, when Miereveld is in his hotel room and he's dosing off in the chair, where the insanity point-of-view really takes over, at least for a bit. The entire scene where Miereveld enters Fran's hotel room and confesses his love for her, where in-turn she seems to approve of his love and then proceeds to make some confessions of her own, is all a delusion on Miereveld's part. It doesn't happen. When Mr. Mato walks into the room and Miereveld drops to his knees, begging Mato not to cut her up, that's where reality snaps back in and that's why Miereveld ends up in an asylum, because Mato realizes that he's obviously mad. Also, I noticed that the entire time Mato was with Miereveld, he seemed to look at him in an incriminating way, as if he was thinking, "this guy's not all there, I need to keep my eye on him". In the end, as I already outlined, Miereveld ends up in an asylum and later, sees newsreel footage of Fran. Following this, he runs up to the Governor of the place and gets confirmation that "Fran survived the shooting". The Governor, knowing that this is Miereveld's delusion and not wanting to totally upset the applecart, agrees that Fran wasn't fatally wounded and that she did recover, even though he knows that Fran was never shot at all.I also don't think that Fran was ever really a famous singer, I think this was more of the delusion. I think Miereveld would like to think that this woman who has consumed his psyche and eaten away at him for so many years, is capable of becoming famous, but I really don't think she is. I think the newsreel footage is proof that Miereveld is still not well, as he continues to see her, even in the confines of an asylum theater. However, I think the film does have a happy ending, as Miereveld sits alone in his room, building a stool and he finally starts to think about his wife and children and how he failed them. I think that's a sign that he's getting better and he's learning to cherish the things in life that are real and not the things that aren't.
Anyway, that's my take on everything mysterious about "The Man Who Had His Hair Cut Short". There's still some unanswered questions, but it's okay not to have all the answers. As for the film itself, I thought it was a very fine film, one that enticed and lured in the viewer, never being too heavy, but making us realize that there was more than meets the eye, with use of certain camera movements and especially music. It's a film that gives you most of it's meat at the end, when it really asks you to chew on the film and one that you have to totally reevaluate when it ends. I think a lot of modern movie snobs are going to take to this one, because modern movie snobs seem to live on twists and turns and this one certainly has a few. I give it a seal of approval and would invite anyone to go check it out on YouTube.
RATING: 7.5/10 Knee jerk, plain and simple. I could see it rising in a matter of hours though, as it eats away at me and I keep thinking about it and replaying it over and over.
MOVIES WATCHED: 380
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 621
December 30, 2011 1:01am
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