Description:
If Dutch cinema is examined in academic studies, the focus is usually on pre-war films or on documentaries, but the post-war fiction film has been sporadically addressed. Many popular box-office successes have been steeped in jokes on parochial conflicts, vulgar behavior and/or on sexual display, towards which Dutch people have often felt ambivalent. At the same time, something like a 'Hollandse school', a term first coined in the 1980s, has manifested itself more firmly, with the work of Alex van Warmerdam, pervaded in deadpan irony as its biggest eye-catcher. Using seminal theories of humor and irony as an angle, this study scrutinizes a great number of Dutch films on the basis of categories such as low-class comedies; neurotic romances; deliberate camp; cosmic irony, or grotesque satire. Hence, Humour and Irony in Dutch Post-war Fiction Film makes surprising connections between films from various decades: Flodder and New Kids Turbo; Spetters and Simon; Rent a Friend and Ober; De verloedering van de Swieps and Borgman; Black Out and Plan C
Preface; Introduction; 1. Low-Class Comedies; 2. Multicultural Comedies; 3. From 'Kind-hearted' Comedies to Neurotic Romances; 4. Deliberate Camp; 5. Humour as an Aftermath Effect; 6. Homosocial Jokes; 7. From Ludic Humour to Cosmic Irony; 8. From Insubordinate ƯPlayfulness to Subversive Irony; 9. From Grotesque Caricature to Grotesque Satire; Conclusion