De brief voor de koning (2008) Reviews

• Too truthful to the book

  Joejoesan2008-07-18

  Not long ago De Brief voor de koning - A letter for the King - was voted most popular Dutch children's book ever. The story of Tonke Dragt's book takes place in the Middle Ages. Young Tiuri is to become a knight, but as a last task he must stay the night in a church chapel with three other pupils. They must not talk. They must not leave. They must not listen to anybody. Late at night a voice is heard from behind the door. A cry for help! Tiuri is the only one who dares opening the door. Knowing he will not be knighted the morning after, he still goes out and helps this stranger. He must bring a secret letter to the king from a foreign country. But is he up to the task? The movie De Brief voor de koning stays true to the book and that turns out to be a bad choice. Things that worked fine in the book suddenly seem not enough to turn it into an exciting movie. As a film the story could have used more tension and perhaps more action. I loved the book. But seeing it as a film... As a sort of road movie most of the scenery looked the same. The locations were beautiful though, but the tone of most scenes was rather dark. Only at the end there were scenes filmed in daylight. But the main flaw of this movie is the casting. Yannick van de Velde (who did very well in In Oranje) is a rather colourless hero. He isn't helped by the dialogue either. It uses polite Medieval sentences which makes it even harder for the audience to live along with his triumphs and disappointments and deprives it from any emotion. To make an audience believe that a young inexperienced boy can complete a dangerous task like Tiuri does, you'd expect the hero to have something extra. But Tiuri isn't extremely smart, strong or charming. He can fight, okay. But he should at least have a dark side - to ignore the rules to win after all when he's outnumbered. How far would he go to complete his task? His sidekick is Piak, played by Quinten Schram. He's a young actor known from his two Pietje Bell movies. Quinten doesn't have as much screen time as Yannick, but somehow his relationship with Tiuri never comes off the ground. There's hardly a spark between these two and that's a real shame. His haircut looks rather silly. Being a fan of the book for so many years I've always imagined that Hollywood would take up this story. The way it was done now - with a small Dutch budget - is courageous. But it does not do justice to the quality of the book. Brief voor de Koning is a nice attempt to turn one of the most popular Dutch children's books into a movie. But unlike a similar project like Kruistocht in Spijkerbroek (Crusade in Jeans) - in which the director had the courage to make some remarkable changes in the story to make a good movie translation - this one is a small disappointment. I say small, because it isn't a bad movie and maybe the fact that I'm a big fan of the book is in the way of a truly objective movie judgement. In Holland it turned out to be a huge hit at the box office. 6,5 out of 10

• Hasty and poor

  martien-jolanda2008-08-05

  Mechanical translation from book to celluloid. No heart, no passion. An attempt to quickly earn as much money based on the popularity of the (audio)book. Wrong persons casted for the medieval roles. Love story of 2 scenes and 2 minutes. Friendship in 3 scenes and 3 minutes. Nevertheless - when the endless dragging thru the woods is finished - some beautiful castle pictures. Dark knights with white shields, grey knights with red shields: a film can do better than that. Director and producer should be a bit ashamed to have this film on his record. See "Kruistocht in spijkerbroek" for a much better NL book to film exercise.

• Hasted garbage

  c-i-z-ler2008-07-19

  This movie is dreadful. I really can not understand why the director is being praised for what he created here. Every scene seems to be rushed, as if there wasn't enough film in the camera. Like when Piak throws Tiuri his sword. Piak doesn't throw it further than a few feet yet when the camera changes its angle, all of a sudden the sword flies another 8 feet. Is it such a bother to just throw that sword a few times more often? And then there are the actors, almost all of them the best Holland has to offer and a few of Germany's great. How come none of these fine actors seem to shine in their parts? Isn't it a big part of the directors work to ensure they do their best? Then there are parts of the book that are altered for no good reason. Why doesn't this film start with Tiuri in the chapel? That would have been a great introduction for the main character. A dim lit chapel, and then the knock on the door and the cry for help. It is easy to convey a bit a drama to that, but it doesn't happen. Vokia is also wounded, no idea why, he wasn't in the book. And it doesn't quite fit either. There are parts that I liked in this movie. The shots of the landscape through which Tiuri goes are pretty good. The actor that plays Jaro does a good job. And when Tiuri meets the lord of the toll I got an emotional response from this performance, even though it doesn't really make sense in light of the book. All in all, I just think it is too bad they didn't put some more effort into this. It could have been something if the makers would have just spend some more time in preparing dramatic effect, storyboard and a decent script. I sincerely hope they don't ruin another great book by Tonke Dragt. A disappointed fan.

• When terrible is in need of even worse...

  mdaf_22009-01-10

  After hearing Tonke Dragt's "brief voor de koning" was about to be filmed I really was looking forward to it. "Kruistocht in spuikerbroek" showed a dutch filmmaker can do really well. So when I saw the trailer and read about it, I hasted myself towards the cinema, assuming this would be a great two hours movie. In the beginning all was fine, nice locations, beautiful costumes, all looked like it could be part of the book. But then, after ten minutes or so, the audio became very irritating with horrible lip syncing. It looked like afterwards in the audio recording studio the director forgot to show the movie and actors had to read their lines straight from paper … at once, without retries or any rehearsal. And why didn't any one bother to think about distance?? On film the actors turn their head, walk away, stand one meter from the camera or ten, but the volume is always the same. I guess I could get used to this, wasn't it for the horrible stage acting pronunciation. I mean, if an actor is on stage he should speak as clear as possible. But hey, this is cinema, the audio comes from several speakers, speak naturally, do not overdo it! Then there's the acting, how many shots did it take to make this movie, only one? Was half of all shooting days wasted on rehearsals? With every single scene I was under the impression the director shouted "Great, well done! Next one!" You can sometimes even see main characters without lines looking around like "what am I doing here, or hey, what kind of lens is that cameraman using?" And then the locations, though well chosen, did anyone really bother to recheck them before filming?? Why are electricity cables running on walls in a medieval setting? And was it so hard to cover up twenty century electricity boxes?? After this, I think it was twenty minutes into the movie, everything became very annoying. The night shots taken at day time with dark filters, but with the sunny shadows so clearly visible. The rare good acting of even fewer actors became bad, rapped by bad voice recording. And then, halfway through the movie I became angry, very angry, this was not a movie made to do just to the book or to entertain the audience. It was made so uninspired famous actors had a job and a film crew without any talent could make a full movie. Was it all bad then? No, the choice of many locations was great, even some actors really tried hard and costume design was great, but what remained was this horrible feeling I completely wasted my time, money and even worse, my good mood. So I left the cinema with an very angry feeling. This movie was an insult, a blasphemy of what good cinema is all about. Besides very few efforts it all looked like the makers wanted to make a very, very quick buck. But hey, this is my opinion. I still would say, go see for yourself. But please, rent it, or much better, try to lend it from friends or family or any one who was drunk enough to buy this one, because in all honesty, the idea the creators of this flick receive any more money makes me sick: they should be in the TV business, not the film industry.

• High hopes, but very disappointing

  zazboy2008-11-20

  As a very big fan of the book. Both books actually (Geheimen van het Wilde Woud is even better), I was disappointed. One of the reason I didn't like the movie very much is because it was made for children. You don't see any blood., it is too simple. The scenes are too short and the dialogs are not that appealing to me and convincing. Some of the characters are casted very well ( the Germans) but the dutch actors didn't do it for me. There isn't an interaction between the characters. They didn't pay attention to detail. And the movie was short. The movie and the scenes are way too short. Mainly because it is a movie for children. You know how much this ruined the movie for me? There should have been a more dark vibe around the movie. I missed that. And the fighting wasn't that good either. And the way the Red Knights are dressed and the way their shields were. It is not like in the books. And it can't be that hard to made? Almost all the reason I gave that disappointed me, were because it was a dutch movie and because it was a children's movie. That is what ruined it for me because I had high hopes. I know making a movie out of a book is hard, but it can be done and there are good examples like some of the guys here mentioned ( Crusade in Jeans). Too bad, hopefully the second part ( Geheimen van het Wilde Woud) will be better.