The Scorpion

When Lew Wolff (Tuinman), burdened with a criminal past and a bleak future, arrives in an out-of-season coastal resort on his way to a new life in America, he's hardly prepared for the danger and confusion that arise after he exchanges his own papers for a false passport: he reads reports of his death, is warned off, finds his room ransacked. For all the potential thrills thrown up by this premise, Verbong's film resembles his earlier The Girl with the Red Hair in emphasising theme, character and atmosphere rather than suspense. Set in Holland in 1956, the film examines the mysterious legacy of that country's colonial involvement in Indonesia during the '40s; and in asking where Sukarno's rebels obtained their arms in order to repel the Dutch, proposes some pretty unconvincing answers in some pretty awkward flashbacks. The main body of the film, however, is sensitive and engaging, and in moments of noir-flecked seediness comes truly alive.