Dear readers and learners of the Dutch language!  Tonight is an important night in Nederland.  If you hear a knock on your door this evening, you may find a big burlap sack full of presents, molting in the snow.  If you’re quick enough, you may catch Zwarte Piet before he disappears:  that is to say, you may catch one of Saint Nicholas’s helpers – who, unlike Santa’s elves, have the unfortunate fate of being subject to some twenty-first century controversy, thanks to their frequent appearance in public as poorly-disguised young Dutchmen in blackface.

Young Dutchmen in blackface appear in Dick Maas’s Sint, too.  But they are not, as the saying goes, long for this world.  In a strange turn of events that has itself been the subject of some controversy here in Holland, this November a horror movie was released based on the premise that Sinterklaas was not, as the legend goes, born on December 6, but murdered.  And when the moon is full on pakjesavond (tonight – December 5 – and not a full moon this year, thank God), the Sint takes his dastardly revenge.  Needless to say, parents weren’t happy – particularly with the Sint-ister movie posters.

When I first saw the trailer for this movie, it seemed like a tantalizing possibility.  The tone of the preview is quite tongue-in-cheek (coming from the makers of Amsterdamned, what else could one expect?), and if you watch it (below) I think you’ll see what enticed me so:  basically, I thought it would be hilarious, campy, ironic, self-aware, so-bad-it’s-good…etc.

Sadly, only the trailer is perfect.  (This can happen sometimes:  someone should collect perfect trailers for bad movies, somewhere, no?)  The movie itself – which I slept through a good chunk of – is boring and formulaic, and not Dutch in any way worth savoring.  Was this piece of D-list cinema worth shattering children’s illusions?

My going to see Sint did have the unintended but satisfying consequence of proving the argument I made in my last post, about Dutch attitudes toward sleep.  When I fell asleep during the movie, you can bet that my companion –Dutch as the day is long – had something to say about it.

Prettige feestdagen, allemaal!