The documentary tradition inaugurated in the early Thirties by Joris Ivens was continued by his collaborators including John Fernhout a cameraman turned director and ultimately a Cannes prize winner for his 1967 entry Sky Over Holland, and Helen van Dongen a pioneer editor who helped produce Flaherty's Louisiana Story (1948). Meanwhile as in the silent age, feature production existed only on a small scale, not on the whole greatly improved by an influx of refugee directors from the German industry, names that included Max Ophuls and the keeper of the frame, Douglas Sirk.
After the Second World War, Bert Haanstra would become the leading documentarist with Spiegel von Holland (Mirror of Holland, 1962) which showcased the country as reflected in its canals, lakes and rivers. His various short films consisted of the Oscar-wining Glas (Glass,1958) and the humorously observed Zoo in 1962.
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| When in Rome, or make that when in Nederlands - from Ape and Super-Ape (1972) |
Haanstra's very first feature Fanfare (1958) was the Dutch studios answer to Ealing comedy that concerned two rival brass bands in a country village with script assistance from none other than Alexander Mackendrick. It was a huge success albeit the following film would flop and Haanstra then turned out a feature-length documentary with Alleman (The Human Dutch,1964) a candid camera look at his fellow countrymen, The Voice of the Water, 1967 celebrating the Dutch's sacrosanct relationship to the sea and the canals and Ape and Super-Ape (1972) focused on man and his relation to the animal kingdom. He resumed making fictional films with the dark and obsessive When the Puppies Bloom Again (1975) and a character study of retired businessmen with Mr. Slotter's Jubilee in 1979.