Lage landen, De

The Dutch landscape is rather plain and simple to many Dutch people, but this film finds the beauty in the typical polder landscape. The emphasis lies on elemental wind and water, so vital to the Netherlands, a country in which the miller grinds, the farmer’s wife tends the goats and church bells form the soundtrack for this slice of the Dutch life of yesteryear. More metaphorical than narrative vivid images of the land and those that modern Dutch no longer consider wonderful: large-scale new estates in big cities, the pride of the reconstruction. The erection of houses and offices after World War II is symbol of the vigour with which Dutch labourers set to work again after the German occupation. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)