Jaap Hoogstra

The Dead Man returns, but it's too late to save us. We are already dead.

A man of independent means oddly suited to survival amid the chaos of modern life, Inni Wintrop is a committed dabbler, content to casually wander the streets of Amsterdam, follow the dips and rises of the stock exchange and commodities market, speculate in art and love, and write a newspaper horoscope column. But his inconsistencies are interrupted when he meets two men who are the epitome of order and regulation.

A murderer is at large: a well-dressed businessman incarcerates his victims, chains and starves them, and documents their death amid their filth with Instamatic snaps. Meanwhile, in another part of town, a woman joins a brothel...

Hugo Claus rewrote and directed Friday as the cinematic version of his original 1969 play of the same name. Just as in the play, the story begins with the theme of incest, as the father Georges (Frank Aendenboom) returns from serving his jail sentence for that crime. Unlike the earlier play, however, the film does not emphasize that aspect of the story. When Georges gets home he finds out that his wife Jeanne (Kitty Courbois) has had an illegitimate child by a younger man, Erik (Herbert Flack), and now both of them must somehow try to return to a normal life, given their only too obvious lapses in moral judgment. As the husband and wife try hard to accommodate each other's failings and start to get to know each other again, Erik comes back into the picture. Now the three of them must resolve the deep-seated conflicts that brought them to this emotionally-wrought juncture of love and betrayal.

A family sits at the dinner table without talking to one another with only the radio playing in the background and increasingly the awkward silence among the family members builds up to something unexpected.

Sick and tired of living in poverty in post-war Germany, Fred Bogner has left his wife Käte with their three children. They continue to meet on a casual basis every time Fred can find money enough to book a hotel room. Based on the German novel 'Und sagte kein einziges Wort' by Heinrich Böll.