BorgmanThere are folk legends that warn against showing discourtesy to a guest at your doorstep, lest you be plagued by a terrible curse. Borgman is a Dutch psychological thriller about a mysterious stranger named Camiel Borgman (Jan Bijvoet) who comes to the home of an affluent family after being chased out of his woodland home and requests to use their bath to clean himself up. He is refused entry by the stressed-out and short-tempered patriarch, Richard (Jeroen Perceval), who becomes violent after Borgman insinuates a past relationship with his wife, Marina (Hadewych Minis). Although she shows him compassion and lets him secretly stay in their summer home, Borgman's influence begins to spread over the family like a virulent plague.
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Borgman is a retelling of a folktale usually about an unkempt man or woman arriving at the threshold of a noble family, and being turned away. The stranger is subsequently revealed to be either a beautiful princess or handsome prince, and the unfriendly host is ashamed, realizing the foolishness of the rudeness. In others, the mysterious figure turns out to be a witch or warlock who hexes the household out of spite; this is the version that is closest to Borgman. At the start of the film, Borgman is literally living underground in the woods, until a trio of strangers hunting for him force him and his suit-wearing refugees from their shelters beneath the earth. Living in the deep woods hints that Borgman possesses some arcane, primal power; with his scraggly beard, he looks the part of a medieval wizard. Borgman's deceptive attempts to get inside Richard's home result in the businessman brutally kicking and clubbing him. Because of the attack, Borgman wins sympathy from Marina, suggesting that his provocation of Richard was a part of his scheme to begin with. Richard and Marina's daughter, Isolde (Elve Lijbaart), tells her parents that she saw a "magician" after Borgman pokes his head into the childrens' room at night. Isolde is closer to the truth than she knows--the longer Borgman spends in the home, the more mystifying the behavior of its inhabitants becomes, as if they were under a spell. Borgman's behavior has characteristics of legerdemain, like how he maneuvers through the house as silent as a ghost, or how a pair of lean dogs (that resemble Borgman somewhat) obey him like familiars. Borgman's "power" over others seems related to suggestion, which may include hypnotism, drugs, or other bizarre rituals. He begins ingratiating himself into Marina's life by leveraging her shame at his abuse by her husband, exploiting her feelings like a true conman. She offers him food and a bath, and even a place to sleep. Borgman presses her hospitality by asking to stay longer until he can recover from the pain inflicted on him, and even asks for additional baths over time. While Borgman hides out under Richard's nose, he creeps into their house and regales the children with bedtime stories, applying more insidious aspects of his unique brand of mind control as his stay prolongs. Naked, he perches like an incubus over Marina, as if casting a spell while she sleeps, recalling Fuseli's classic painting, "The Nightmare". Borgman afflicts her dreams with visions of Richard violently abusing her in increasingly psychotic ways, and she awakens convinced that he really meant to perform these abominable acts against her, much to his befuddlement. Borgman hammers a wedge between the couple, compelling Marina to become infatuated by Borgman--another aspect of his macabre revenge against them. His psychological dominion is not limited to sly psychological or onierological tricks, either. He and his acolytes transport Richard and Marina's children away and give them a bright orange potion--comically served from a Taz the Tazmanian Devil coffee mug--which makes them lethargic and prone to suggestion. A series of marks or scars on the backs or shoulders of several characters--especially his conspirators--implies that Borgman employs surgical means to turn people into his slaves; a literal "mark of the beast". Richard awakens one morning to find a black "X" tattooed on his shoulder, after which his welfare suffers a rapid downturn, as though he were "marked" by some malevolent entity.
Much of Borgman appears arbitrary and even mean-spirited; but beneath the series of seemingly random and disjointed plot points, there is an undercurrent of repressed psychological urges and neurological fixations that drive the characters. Comparisons have been made between Borgman and the films of Michael Haneke, specifically Funny Games--both depict the malicious destruction of a wealthy and wholesome family by indifferent and emotionally detached outsiders. While Funny Games forces the audience to question their entertainment value from the cathartic act of violence, Borgman insinuates that people are ultimately victims of their own innate fears, desires, and their upbringing--burying those aspects makes them vulnerable to exploitation, evidenced by Borgman and his crew. Borgman also recalls Takashi Miike's taboo-smashing Visitor Q, although Borgman appears less interested in "liberating" the family unit from its own idiosyncrasies. That the children emerge virtually unscathed at the end suggests that Borgman values the innocence of childhood, untainted by the arrogance of maturity which Richard and Marina use to justify their indifference toward their own children. The parents hire an English speaking au pair named Stein (Sara Hjort Ditlevsen) who is accountable for caring for the children in lieu of their parents, so that Marina can play at her artwork instead, and Richard is free to grumble about work even when he is not at work. From a Freudian perspective, the unresolved psychological quirks from Richard and Marina's adolescence have developed into neuroses with maturity--one more element Borgman exploits to gain control over the household. Marina feels a lack of intimacy from her husband, and her motherly instincts emerge when she has the opportunity to "nurse" Borgman back to health--Borgman teases Richard that Marina used to be a nurse, even though she denies this. Marina experiences a Florence Nightingale effect while caring for Borgman; ironically, he cultivates her desires by refusing her advances, spinning her attraction into full-blown obsession, going to extremes to integrate Borgman into the household and remove her husband from it. Richard's anger management issues not only help Borgman get his foot in the proverbial (and literal) door, but his latent racism clouds his judgment when a disguised Borgman applies for the recently vacated position of gardener. Borgman includes frequent instances of spontaneous cruelty and violence, like when Isolde discovers a severely beaten would-be gardener in their woods. Instead of going for help like he asks, she lifts up a stone slab and crushes his head with it. It is likely that Isolde is in the thrall of Borgman by this point, but this also speaks to an inherent cruelty found in children--even a curious young girl is willing to squish a helpless critter just to see what's on the inside. Borgman's sadistic behavior mirrors this same childlike cruelty. When he decides that he will "play" at being the new gardener, he poisons the current one with a toxic blowdart, then subsequently drives his victim back to his house--but not before stopping off at the hardware store for a couple of large, plastic garden pots--and subsequently kills him and his wife with the help of his friends posing as doctors. He plants them head first into the pots, fills them with cement, and then chucks the bodies into the river, their corpses resembling the bulbs the gardener never actually got to plant. Why go to such an excessive and extreme end, other than the absurdity of killing a humble gardener in the first place? The ritualistic killing hints at Borgman gaining power from occult sources, which recalls the three men from the introduction. Like witch hunters, they perform rituals including the Eucharist to give them power; one of them sharpens a metal spike with the gravity of a paladin preparing his sword, ready to drive it into the heart of a devil like Borgman.
Recommended for: Fans of a bizarre thriller that combines psychology and myth to weave a tale of domestic instability following the incursion of a household invader. Borgman challenges the audience to evaluate the plot from the point of view of characters who behave erratically because of repressed fixations, and how social niceties disintegrate when these neuroses are laid bare.
Much of Borgman appears arbitrary and even mean-spirited; but beneath the series of seemingly random and disjointed plot points, there is an undercurrent of repressed psychological urges and neurological fixations that drive the characters. Comparisons have been made between Borgman and the films of Michael Haneke, specifically Funny Games--both depict the malicious destruction of a wealthy and wholesome family by indifferent and emotionally detached outsiders. While Funny Games forces the audience to question their entertainment value from the cathartic act of violence, Borgman insinuates that people are ultimately victims of their own innate fears, desires, and their upbringing--burying those aspects makes them vulnerable to exploitation, evidenced by Borgman and his crew. Borgman also recalls Takashi Miike's taboo-smashing Visitor Q, although Borgman appears less interested in "liberating" the family unit from its own idiosyncrasies. That the children emerge virtually unscathed at the end suggests that Borgman values the innocence of childhood, untainted by the arrogance of maturity which Richard and Marina use to justify their indifference toward their own children. The parents hire an English speaking au pair named Stein (Sara Hjort Ditlevsen) who is accountable for caring for the children in lieu of their parents, so that Marina can play at her artwork instead, and Richard is free to grumble about work even when he is not at work. From a Freudian perspective, the unresolved psychological quirks from Richard and Marina's adolescence have developed into neuroses with maturity--one more element Borgman exploits to gain control over the household. Marina feels a lack of intimacy from her husband, and her motherly instincts emerge when she has the opportunity to "nurse" Borgman back to health--Borgman teases Richard that Marina used to be a nurse, even though she denies this. Marina experiences a Florence Nightingale effect while caring for Borgman; ironically, he cultivates her desires by refusing her advances, spinning her attraction into full-blown obsession, going to extremes to integrate Borgman into the household and remove her husband from it. Richard's anger management issues not only help Borgman get his foot in the proverbial (and literal) door, but his latent racism clouds his judgment when a disguised Borgman applies for the recently vacated position of gardener. Borgman includes frequent instances of spontaneous cruelty and violence, like when Isolde discovers a severely beaten would-be gardener in their woods. Instead of going for help like he asks, she lifts up a stone slab and crushes his head with it. It is likely that Isolde is in the thrall of Borgman by this point, but this also speaks to an inherent cruelty found in children--even a curious young girl is willing to squish a helpless critter just to see what's on the inside. Borgman's sadistic behavior mirrors this same childlike cruelty. When he decides that he will "play" at being the new gardener, he poisons the current one with a toxic blowdart, then subsequently drives his victim back to his house--but not before stopping off at the hardware store for a couple of large, plastic garden pots--and subsequently kills him and his wife with the help of his friends posing as doctors. He plants them head first into the pots, fills them with cement, and then chucks the bodies into the river, their corpses resembling the bulbs the gardener never actually got to plant. Why go to such an excessive and extreme end, other than the absurdity of killing a humble gardener in the first place? The ritualistic killing hints at Borgman gaining power from occult sources, which recalls the three men from the introduction. Like witch hunters, they perform rituals including the Eucharist to give them power; one of them sharpens a metal spike with the gravity of a paladin preparing his sword, ready to drive it into the heart of a devil like Borgman.
Recommended for: Fans of a bizarre thriller that combines psychology and myth to weave a tale of domestic instability following the incursion of a household invader. Borgman challenges the audience to evaluate the plot from the point of view of characters who behave erratically because of repressed fixations, and how social niceties disintegrate when these neuroses are laid bare.