Coventry The original Dutch title "Schemer" literally translates itself in English as either "Dusk" or "Twilight", but I suppose the producers righteously and determinately decided not to opt for "Twilight" as the international title in order to avoid confusion and/or association with that horrible teenage-vampire franchise hype. Good for them! "Dusk" is an intriguing and rather harrowing coming-of age drama/thriller, based on a factual murder case as it occurred in The Netherlands in 2003. It's also the type of film that simply had to be based on a true story, otherwise skeptical viewers would immediately start claiming the screenplay is implausible, far-fetched and unrealistic. The events describe the murder of 15-year-old Jessie, everything from the circumstances leading to her murder, the actual crime itself and a brief impression of the painful aftermath. We're introduced to a circle of six (supposedly) close friends, adolescents and classmates, each and every single one of them struggling with personal issues, secrets and demons. At a certain point all of their anger and oppressed frustration is aimed at one person, Jessie, and – mainly under the influence of group leader Ceasar – the five others decide their lives would be much better if Jessie was death. They carry out their plan, although some of them choose not to participate actively, without realizing the horrible impact of the crime until afterwards. Particularly disturbing in the murder case illustrated in "Dusk" is the adolescents' inability to put all their banal little misfortunes and grievances (like jealousy, boyfriend rivalry and forbidden love) into perspective and so easily consider murder as the magical solution to everything. Their conversations about abruptly ending the life of a fellow human being are so natural it quickly becomes deeply discomforting. The vile act itself is executed in a truly cold and vexing fashion as well. In spite of the ugly subject matter, "Dusk" is a very stylish and serene film. The young and relatively unknown cast and crew thankfully chose for atmosphere over sensation, and thus the film patiently takes the time to introduce its characters and even works with different narrative angles to cover some of the same sequences. This narrative structure is well-handles and often gives useful additional insight in the facts as they occurred. Last but not least, tons of respect for the young ensemble cast and director Hanro Smitsman. This certainly isn't conventional Dutch cinema, but the acting performances and directing are outstanding. Very much recommended!

punishmentpark I'm not sure whether I liked this film or not, to be honest. The biggest problem for me lies in the characters (not in the acting per se); Dutch adolescents who are put to the viewer in broad strokes while the story is playing deftly with time and viewpoints. The latter made it kind of intriguing (though the finale is a bit lame), but those 'broad strokes' make the actual drama of it all - the murder itself ánd a believable build-up towards it - not very tangible.More than once I had to think of another film based on a real case of teens that turn against a central figure in their group ('Bully' by Larry Clarke), and how that one díd get under my skin - though it's been a while since I've seen it.My rating should be somewhere in the middle, because it wasn't all that bad.

Saad Khan Schemer – Dusk – CATCH IT ( B ) Allegedly based upon true story of 15 years old girl "Jessica "killed by her friends in small town of Netherlands. It's a story of jealousy, insecurity and how group leader Caesar magnify the small grievances that each of Jessie's friends bear towards her. Caesar transforms these small grievances into a general and pervasive hatred towards Jessica that leads ultimately to her horrible, senseless killing. Schemer cunningly tells the same events from five different points of views. So the audiences understand how each and every one of Jessica's friends starts hating her out of jealousy, insecurity and envy. This method may show one scene again and again from different angles and point of views but in a movie where we know the murder is been committed it's really important to go into minds these people. Matthijs van de Sande Bakhuyzen ("Caesar" and Yes that's his full Name) excels as a group leader, who convinces everyone to kill Jessica when he realizes that she doesn't want him and like Rico. Gaite Jansen is simply brilliant as Jessica, she is innocent, careless and blunt like teenagers. Roos Netjes, Melody Klaver & Robert de Hoog did a nice job as jealous friends of Jessica. Gerson Oratmangoen as Rico seemed misfit to me. Overall, Schemer is a great attempt from Netherlands as in small budget it's been able to capture the essence of jealousy and envy in natural manner.

JvH48 The movie trailer and several reviews in magazines catched my interest, and it arrived at my "must see" list for the Ghent Film Festival 2010. At the end of the screening, though, I was disappointed how the story unfolded. What happened in the dramatic sense stands out, just as it remains a very intriguing course of events. The undercurrent can easily be translated to other situations that can happen to you everyday. This is the main selling point of this movie: demonstrating what harm can be done by mere gossiping, or (even worse) spreading blatant lies about others.I must admit that I have been particularly troubled by the movie format. Every now and then a name appears in bold letters, meaning for the time being that subsequent events are happening from the viewpoint of this person. Net result is that several scenes are shown twice. It gives rise to repeated deja-vu feelings, and is not being helpful in maintaining the attention span. That those repeated scenes are shot from the same camera angle, does not help much either. On the defense, I realize that several important scenes happen within a car, which does not leave much room for creative viewpoints and camera positions.Make no mistake: some deja-vu's are not a problem. Take for instance the scene before the house of the lost girl, when the mother leaves the house to speak with the remaining boys and girls, asking them whether there is any news. This is shown in the beginning as well as in the end of the film. Same with the search party that is shown twice. There is no spoiler here, as we know from the beginning (given the announcement text) that the lost girl has been murdered by their peers.The three boys and three girls who form the main characters of this movie, seem to have one track lives. Their only concern seems mutual attraction and repulsion, interleaved with small and large arguments. However minor on average, these arguments are brought as if they will never speak again with each other, thereby calling the usual names (not repeated here). Neither going to school nor family life seem worth mentioning, other than as wall paper for again another clash. Only one of the boys is an exception, having an invalid mother in a side role, letting him appear to have more than one dimension, but this only seems so in comparison with the others.Maybe, with myself nearly 50 years past their age, I tend to ignore how important those "social" aspects of life were at that time. I may also have forgotten that nothing is so important than relationships within the peer group, and what others think about you. Though there were several invitations to stay the night, don't expect any bed scenes in this movie, or you will be disappointed. Contrary to popular belief, it looks like none of these invitations were actually followed-up.Finally, as an other commentator said (I hope he does not own the copyright for this choice of words), notwithstanding that the Dutch title "Schemer" stands for "Twilight", when literally translated to English, the same title can also be construed to stand for scheme-r or intriguant (like Jago in the opera Othello).