Mijke de Jong's Stages declares its allegiance to the psychodramas of John Cassavetes and Woody Allen in its first minute, as rumbly jazz music plays over a pitch-black screen. For the next hour-plus, de Jong alternates between closely shot, frequently volatile conversations between Elsie de Brauw and Marcel Musters—two recent divorcés still sorting through their old business—and quiet scenes of the couple's teenage son Stijn Koomen reacting to his parents' breakup by behaving erratically. Koomen breaks into other people's apartments and examines their refrigerators, their closets, and their bathrooms, imagining what it would be like to be someone else. Meanwhile, de Brauw and Musters meet in restaurants to talk about Koomen, and to use their competing opinions on how to handle the situation as a way to keep picking at and flirting with each other. Stages is short for a feature film, and because it's not even slightly inscrutable,...
- 11/6/2008
- by Noel Murray
- avclub.com
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