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'New York - Batavia' is not just a remarkable visualisation of the exchange of letters between a man and his wife, not just about the laborious communication between America and the Dutch East Indies, and not only the story about a family longing to be reunited. More than that, 'New York - Batavia' evokes an era; the changing world after the Second World War, the passing of an epoch in a heavy, scrunched time juncture. At the centre is a departure; the closing of a Dutch chapter in the Far East. Using an overwhelming quantity of archive material and based on a true story, Hagen has realized a remarkable production. A Dutch civil servant has to exchange Surinam for Indonesia. His wife and children remain behind in New York. He discovers that the time has come to take his leave. Departing from a colonial actuality that never existed. The myth of the Indonesian idyl. It should be behind glass, thinks the government official.
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Erik Quint
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Scenario: Rien Hagen, Camera: Jan Blom, Gerard Holthuis, Editing: Cesar Messemaker, Rien Hagen, Light: Han Ing Lim, Sound, sound mixing: Max Mollinger, Peter Calicher, Sets: Cesar Messemaker, Production: Meatball with (voices): Dolf de Vries, Anne-Wil Blankers
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