A R C H I E F1 9 9 6  
.14
  Alex van Mechelen
Burenruzie (Neighbours quarrel)
  The Netherlands 1995
Videotape, 2:25, colour, mono
According to the makers themselves, ‘Burenruzie’ is an “unavoidable confrontation with tragedy”. Who is confronted with which tragedy is the question. A man slouches in a chair, we hear the thumping and screaming of the neighbours. After a time, the man begins to tell how, the first time, shocked, he had called the police. But that that hadn’t helped for long. With each new sentence, he lifts his hand in a can’t-do-anything-about-it gesture and then lets it fall limply in his lap. He is clearly not in the least bit shocked anymore. To be honest, I don’t find the neighbours’ fight all that shocking to begin with. Because, as far as you can hear, it all seems to be verbal abuse. No, it’s the resignation of the man in the chair and the twist at the end of the film that “confront us with tragedy”.

Llies Holtrop

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