The Northeners
De Noorderlingen
Alex Van Warmerdam
The Netherlands, 1960, in the middle of nowhere, the single street in an unfinished housing estate. A strange place, cut off from the world, inhabited by strange people: an indiscrete postman, a short-sighted and sterile gamekeeper, a lascivious butcher, a child fascinated by the civil war in the Congo, a woman with intense religious faith. A place where overpopulation and a lack of entertainment have given birth to these strange characters in an extremely dubious climate.
With : Jack Wouterse, Annet Malherbe, Rudolf Lucieer, Loes Wouterson, Leonard Lucieer, Alex Van Warmerdam, Veerle Dobbelaere
Screenplay : Alex Van Warmerdam
Image : Marc Felperlaan
Editing : René Wiegmans
Sound : Georges Bossaers, Rob Dul, Bert Flantua
Costumes : Leonie Polak
Decors : Constance de Vos, Elmer Jacobs, John Wilcox
Music : Vincent van Warmerdam
Screenplay : Alex Van Warmerdam
Image : Marc Felperlaan
Editing : René Wiegmans
Sound : Georges Bossaers, Rob Dul, Bert Flantua
Costumes : Leonie Polak
Decors : Constance de Vos, Elmer Jacobs, John Wilcox
Music : Vincent van Warmerdam
Production : First Floor Features, Pierson, Heldring & Pierson N.V.
Distribution: E. D. Distribution
Distribution: E. D. Distribution
De noorderlingen (The Northeners) is party inspired by van Warmerdam's childhood memories of living in the first street of a new estate which had something of the world of painter Piet Mondrian about it. To get the right graphic character, van Warmerdam took nine months to develop the film and draw the storyboard with his loyal director of photography Marc Felperlaan. Van Warmerdam wanted the place to be tinged with strangeness by cutting it off from the outside world. "When I lived in Ljmuiden, I saw a black person in the street for the first time, it was an amazing feeling. I wanted to use this first impression" (Alex van Warmerdam). Using a surrealist dimension, combining the absurd and offbeat humour, Alex van Warmerdam says that his film is only "the tip of the iceberg", the crossing point of "thousands of ramifications". He defined De noorderlingen as "a primitive film, a film on the human race".