{"id":982,"date":"2010-12-05T16:23:19","date_gmt":"2010-12-05T16:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/?p=982"},"modified":"2014-07-18T14:45:31","modified_gmt":"2014-07-18T14:45:31","slug":"het-beste-sint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/het-beste-sint\/","title":{"rendered":"Het beste Sint"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear readers and learners of the Dutch language!\u00a0\u00a0Tonight is an important night in Nederland.\u00a0\u00a0If you hear a knock on your door this evening, you may find a big burlap sack full of presents, molting in the snow.\u00a0\u00a0If you\u2019re quick enough, you may catch Zwarte Piet before he disappears:\u00a0\u00a0that is to say, you may catch one of Saint Nicholas\u2019s helpers \u2013 who, unlike Santa\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Young Dutchmen in blackface appear in Dick Maas\u2019s\u00a0<em>Sint<\/em>, too.\u00a0\u00a0But they are not, as the saying goes, long for this world.\u00a0\u00a0In 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,\u00a0<em>born <\/em>on December 6, but <em>murdered<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0And when the moon is full on\u00a0<em>pakjesavond<\/em> (tonight \u2013 December 5 \u2013 and not a full moon this year, thank God), the Sint takes his dastardly revenge.\u00a0\u00a0Needless to say, parents weren\u2019t happy \u2013 particularly with the\u00a0<em>Sint<\/em>-ister movie posters.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2010\/12\/SINT_poster1.jpeg\" aria-label=\"SINT Poster1 300x209\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-984\" title=\"SINT_poster1\"  alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"209\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2010\/12\/SINT_poster1-300x209.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When I first saw the trailer for this movie, it seemed like a tantalizing possibility.\u00a0\u00a0The tone of the preview is quite tongue-in-cheek (coming from the makers of\u00a0<em>Amsterdamned<\/em>, what else could one expect?), and if you watch it (below) I think you\u2019ll see what enticed me so:\u00a0\u00a0basically, I thought it would be hilarious, campy, ironic, self-aware, so-bad-it\u2019s-good\u2026etc.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Sint trailer - English subtitles\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UeRd5vIOP5Q?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Sadly, only the trailer is perfect.\u00a0\u00a0(This can happen sometimes:\u00a0\u00a0someone should collect perfect trailers for bad movies, somewhere, no?)\u00a0\u00a0The movie itself \u2013 which I slept through a good chunk of \u2013 is boring and formulaic, and not Dutch in any way worth savoring.\u00a0\u00a0Was this piece of D-list cinema worth shattering children\u2019s illusions?<\/p>\n<p>My going to see <em>Sint<\/em> did have the unintended but satisfying consequence of proving the argument I made in my last post, about Dutch attitudes toward sleep.\u00a0\u00a0When I fell asleep during the movie, you can bet that my companion \u2013Dutch as the day is long \u2013 had something to say about it.<\/p>\n<p>Prettige feestdagen, allemaal!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"244\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2010\/12\/SINT_poster1-350x244.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image tmp-hide-img\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2010\/12\/SINT_poster1-350x244.jpeg 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2010\/12\/SINT_poster1.jpeg 627w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>Dear readers and learners of the Dutch language!\u00a0\u00a0Tonight is an important night in Nederland.\u00a0\u00a0If you hear a knock on your door this evening, you may find a big burlap sack full of presents, molting in the snow.\u00a0\u00a0If you\u2019re quick enough, you may catch Zwarte Piet before he disappears:\u00a0\u00a0that is to say, you may catch one&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/het-beste-sint\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3590],"tags":[12892,12891,12890,2516,12893],"class_list":["post-982","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dutch-language","tag-dick-maas","tag-pakjesavond","tag-sint","tag-sleep","tag-trailers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=982"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2763,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982\/revisions\/2763"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}