“A family film a la Ed van der Elsken”
The dominant Raven is partly based on your own father. What did you want in this figure?
“Raven is a selfish man, but also a charismatic man. He falls hopelessly in love with someone else (a woman) and then no longer pays attention to his surroundings. Infatuation clashes with ideals, and he does not acknowledge that. He's selfish and dominant.
Nowadays we still have many theater collectives in Belgium within which a leader often emerges, someone with more charisma, who then directs, for better or for worse. But for me, those kinds of men were very much part of that time, as if men were becoming more smooth from now on. For example, Ed van der Elsken, a great artist, but when you make films you also see how he sometimes engulfs others. (Trouw)
