Perception_de_Ambiguity Not even a year ago I probably would have said that 'The Fourth Man' insults my intelligence as a viewer for lacking a good sense of realism among other things, but it really is an unapologetic Catholic fairy tale put into the dress of a thriller. There isn't much about this plot that is realistic, some of it even was played deliberately campy, it seems, I'm especially thinking of the flashbacks that show the deaths of certain characters, if you have seen the film you will know which scene I'm thinking of, it's like out of a Hammer film production. If we wouldn't know better from Paul Verhoeven's body of work we would assume that the film was made by a religious fanatic who really believes in occultism, prevision, the literal truth of the bible and other mythical matters and wants the audience to believe all of them too. 'De vierde man' - if it wants to be cherished - certainly requires its audience to just roll with it and accept those things as a given for the sake of the film.What really is the intended appeal for the audience is questionable overall since we know from start on that the blonde (Christine) has nothing good in mind for Gerard (while for long passages it plays it relatively straight as a romance where the viewer is supposed to care for both characters) and that it involves fantastic elements, although to which extend those things are true and prevalent we find out during the course of the movie, and I have to say that it goes all the way in both affairs. How it uses homosexuality as a plot device...I don't want to say it trivializes the topic, but it really is used without much psychological depth, it doesn't make Gerard a much more complex character, instead it feels like it's just used to drive along the plot and as such it feels tacked on. But it's funny how this creates a plot situation that is reminiscent of 'Lolita'. Gerard agrees to stay with the blonde just to get to her boyfriend who he is in love with, so Gerard plays the lover in order to reach real love, and again it is sort of a taboo love, certainly not as taboo as the love of Humbert Humbert to the 12-year-old Dolores, but still.No doubt 'De vierde man' should have an appeal to fans of surrealist cinema with its blunt symbolism and the protagonist's fears turned into physical reality, without the filmmakers giving a priority to plausibility or even coherence, not even coherence of characters. Christine not only is the personified evil who in retrospect can't convince as a being with a soul, but her ability to foresee so precisely how Gerard would act upon her vicious setups can't make her human, and that's where we come full circle, because it is an unapologetic fairy tale and as such it's not necessary for its characters to be convincing human beings, it's enough for them to be human-like. For films though I can not so easily accept this concept and it's a reason why eventually I wasn't all too satisfied with the film. But I have become more open to films that lack plausibility if there is a reason for it. In this case there is a reason but I'm not convinced of the preciousness of it. It made for an entertaining thriller that shows some inventiveness and trippy pictures but that I think substantially is eventually not more than a rather shallow Catholic fantasy.

Graham Greene Well known for being something of a run-through for the infamous Basic Instinct (1992), The Fourth Man (1983) remains one of maverick director Paul Verhoeven's greatest works. Like Basic Instinct, The Fourth Man blends sex and death in a delicious cocktail of mystery, suspense and exaggerated imagery; telling a story of seduction and paranoia through the eyes and mind of an unreliable narrator. In this instance, Gerard Reve; an alcoholic writer of lurid pulp fiction, who in the film's subtle and darkly sardonic opening sequence, staggers out of bed, naked and hung-over, and - in a scene of quiet confusion and matter of fact precision - garrottes his homosexual lover to the point of asphyxiation. Right from the start, Verhoeven is skilfully introducing those aforementioned themes of sex and death, as well as establishing the air of incredibly dark humour, symbolism and that sense of blurring the lines between fact and fiction to near incomprehensible levels of uncertainty, all of which will permeate the film's very core.Verhoeven has often claimed that the somewhat skewed, surreal and heavily atmospheric look and feel of the film was purposely stylised to an almost obvious degree in order to placate the high-brow Dutch film critics who had, at that particular time in his career, dismissed previous films such as Keetje Tippel (1975) and Spetters (1980) as lurid sensationalism. Whether or not this is the case is open to debate, but what most impresses here is Verhoeven's energy and skill in presenting such a taut and labyrinthine thriller that seems to draw as much on the surreal and coolly evocative psychodrama of a filmmaker like Ingmar Bergman as it does on the twisted world of Alfred Hitchcock. From beginning to end, The Fourth Man offers old fashioned suspense and bold strokes of drama, all contrasted and juxtaposed against the director's moody, European style and liberal bursts of violence and eroticism. The design of the film - rich with over-saturated light and colour, shades of autumn and lingering camera movements - suggest a world hinged somewhere between the noir-like stylisation of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist (1970) and the vibrant, lurid surrealism of Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977), to add further depths to the already densely layered mystery, and to create a world that seems real, but at the same time, entirely dreamlike.The film works on a number of levels; on the one-hand, as a piece of pure entertainment, with Verhoeven's always memorable use of imagery - both grotesque and beautiful - and his scenes of upfront and often confrontational violence and sexuality. The film is as much about sexuality and desire as it is about sex; with Gerard introduced initially as gay, though he later has an affair with the central femme-fatale, but only after he has flattened her small breasts with his hands and confessed that she "looks like a boy". Later in the film he will seduce the fiancé of this character and again raise questions pertaining to the film's central enigma. In the most telling scene, Gerard attends a Q&A session for his new book. When someone in the audience asks him about his secret for writing, Gerard replies "I lie the truth". Perhaps a poor subtitle translation, but the implication that Gerard sees the world through a somewhat false perspective is certainly there; with the further elements of alcoholism, sexual confusion, lust and paranoia creating a fascinating central character, quite possibly creating the story in his mind as it moves along.There are Hitchcockian allusions as noted, with the cold, blonde femme-fatale person represented by Christine, who has an air of subtle menace and great sexuality. Is Gerard seducing her or is she seducing Gerard, and just why have three of her past husbands turned up dead in recent years? Is Gerard imagining all of this? Is he genuinely interested in Christine, or is he more interested in getting closer to the man in her life? Are his reasons purely sexual or are they a further fuelled by his lurid obsessions with death? Questions like this crop up constantly with The Fourth Man, with Verhoeven denying the audience easy answers and instead plunging headlong into surreal visions of rotting eyeballs, strung-up meat carcasses, puddles of blood and the juxtaposition of homoerotic yearning with Christ-like metaphors. There's also a continual use of black-widow symbolism apparent right from the start, as well as all the elements coming together at the end in a sort of tragic foreshadowing of events. Even then, do we believe Gerard and his wild accusations, or is this just another example of the alcoholic, over-sexed writer "lying the truth" for the purposes of fiction.The Fourth Man is a film that I haven't seen in a long time, but its images and story have always stayed with me. On my initial viewing in 2001, my familiarity with Verhoeven was based purely on his satirical Hollywood pictures, principally Robocop (1986), Total Recall (1991) and Starship Troopers (1997). I was also fairly unfamiliar with European cinema in general, meaning that the film's bold scenes of both straight and gay sex, nudity and imagined (or are they?) scenes of surreal, sexualised violence were a real revelation. A few years later I returned to the film and found it just as fascinating; with the labyrinthine plot, moody visuals, bold performances and totally entrancing story and character drawing me in; offering a great central mystery that is visually captivating and rife with a myriad of potential interpretations. It's easy to say that The Fourth Man is one of my favourite films; filled with cool irony, controversial images and ideas, and a completely fascinating, dreamlike evocation of the story at hand.

Martin Bradley Gerard is a writer with a somewhat overactive imagination. He is also homosexual and Catholic prone to Catholic guilt and something of a clairvoyant, or so it seems. On a trip to Flushing he is 'seduced' by Christine. When he discovers that Christine's new boyfriend is the bit of rough trade he's been fancying from afar he decides to stick around. After all, enforced heterosexuality has its compensations. Then he realizes that Christine's previous three husbands have all died violent deaths. Did Christine murder them and is he or the boyfriend, Herman, going to be 'the fourth man'? Verhoeven's overheated, over-egged melodrama is a delicious blend of Hitchcock and David Lynch, full of OTT eroticism and religious imagery and an awful lot of the colour red. A lot of the time it looks and feels like a dream and we can never be sure that what we are seeing is real or a figment of Gerard's imagination. The fun is in figuring it out. Also the fact that Christine is an infinitely more likable character that either the priggish Gerard or the bullish Herman means we are hardly like to root for either of the men over her. In fact, it's fair to say Gerard's comeuppance can't come soon enough. Super performances, too, from Jeroen Krabbe and Renee Soutendijk and easily Verhoeven's best film up to his wonderfully subversive piece of sci-fi "Starship Troopers".

Chricke-2 This last Dutch speaking film of Verhooven made me laugh good. As a film buff looking for all the small details and cross references etc in any movie I can assure anyone interested in film art that this piece amuses all the senses. I haven't read Gerard Reves book, on which the film is based, but I still believe we get a candid picture of a somewhat self-conceited poet/writer who gets his (in a way - no spoiling here). An anti-hero surrounded by characters that have their ambiguous intentions, as has he. All this in a superbly packaged cinematography, Paul Verhopven manages to turn the otherwise rather cute "gesellich(?)" Dutch locations into a suspenseful film-noir setting, impressive work!