Belle van Zuylen - Madame de Charrière

Überaus elegant, in den gedämpften Farben der Zeit, inszeniert Sinke die intime Freundschaft der Romanautorin und Komponistin Belle van Zuylen, verheiratete Charrière, mit dem weit jüngeren Benjamin Constant. Der Film durchläuft die Jahre von 1787 bis 1795 und zentriert sich so, quasi als Prüfstein der Charaktere, um die Französische Revolution. Der sympathisch-hilflose Jüngling Benjamin entpuppt sich als ebenso egoistischer wie larmoyanter Opportunist der Macht. Belle aber bleibt dem aufklärerischen Anspruch einer menschenfreundlichen Vernunft treu, der Versöhnung von Gefühl und Verstand, bereit auch – umso mehr als Frau – den Preis dafür zu zahlen. (Barbara Kronsfoth)

In Anwesenheit von Digna Sinke und Gerwin Tamsma (Kurator).

The genesis of BELLE VAN ZUYLEN reveals a great deal about the Dutch film industry. Digna Sinke conceived the idea for a film about the eighteenth-century writer, composer, and avid letter-writer back in the late 1970s. Composer Marius Flothuis asked her why no film had ever been made about this first feminist, who, at the crossroads of Enlightenment and Romanticism, maintained a passionate correspondence with the younger French intellectual Benjamin Constant. Yet, it would take more than a decade before the film could be made, as it faced numerous objections from the male gatekeepers at broadcasters and film funds. The result was both literary and lighthearted: the cast of stage actors were well-suited to the eighteenth-century language, but the staging also feels playful and ironic more than thirty years later. The melodramatic events are observed with curiosity: Belle Van Zuylen is trapped in a barren marriage and has fled to Paris to live. After an initial encounter with Constant, she decides to accompany her husband to Switzerland, where the intellectual love affair with Constant continues. The revision of concepts like Reason and Romanticism transport the film to the present. (Dana Linssen)

Digna Sinke (Auswahl): GROETEN UIT ZONNEMAIRE (1972), DE STILLE OCEAAN (1984), BELLE VAN ZUYLEN (1993), Tiengemeten Project (2001–2006), WEEMOED EN WILDERNIS (2010), AFTER THE TONE (2014), UNDER THE SURFACE (2016), BEWAREN / KEEPING & SAVING (2018), ZOET & ZOUT (2019), GRENZEN (2020), HEMELSLEUTEL (2024)