Florida's Film, Television and the Arts Magazine
Reedland - Movie Review
Secrets, the behavor of clans, small "c", not "k", and encroaching change, both economic and moral, frame the haunting Reedland, the Dutch entry into this year’s Oscars. Reedmen and dairy farmers are neighbors in this close-knit Dutch community. Johan (Gerrit Knobbe), who mows and collects reeds for construction projects for a living, as his father and grandfather have done, discovers the partially nude body of a dead, young local woman among the reeds on his property. He contacts and is questioned by the local authorities.
A Trooter, a resident from another village, is arrested. The local authorities are quick to blame an outsider. The reedmen in that nearby village are using mechanical equipment to do their work, and the residents of Johan's village look down on them, claming their product is inferior. The local farmers like Johan refuse to use equipment and lose sales to more industrialized farmers, like these Trooters.
Johan, a widower, who lives with his daughter and headstrong granddaughter, still cares for the horse his late wife owned. He’s very concerned for the young women in his community, especially his young and vulnerable granddaughter, Dana. He feels guilt that the murder happened on his property. Johan starts to investigate the crime, and ask questions of his neighbors. The local police refuse to deeply investigate his findings because they may point to a member of their own community.
Reedland is a rural film-noir: a dead body, a desolate emptyness, some very bizarre scenes. I originally thought it was going to be a judgement on immigration, but it turns into something very different. A lonely man facing a world racing at him, with changes he's no longer able to anticipate or control.
