Fons Rademakers is a famous Dutch director. He was the first Dutch director to win an Oscar in the category "Best foreign language movie" with "The assault" (1986). His most well known movies are adaptations of famous Dutch writers. "The assault" is based on a novel by Harry Mulisch and "Max Havelaar" (1976) is based on a novel by Multatuli alias Eduard Douwes Dekker.
"The dark room of Damocles" (1963) is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Willem Frederik Hermans. By 2024 this novel was still in the top 10 of Dutch literature.
As often happens, in the end the writer was not completely satisfied with the final result of the film. In my opinion this final result, with one exception about which more later on, adequately shows the essential elements of the book. These essential elements are:
An avarage person, even a person on the brink of being a loser in peace time, suddenly becomes a member of the resistence in the war.
The novel illustrates the avarage person / loser element by the fact that Ducker (his name) has an ordinary job (running a cigar shop, often the job of a retired socker player), that his wife cheats on him with the neighbor but most of all by emphasizing the fact that Ducker has no facial hair.
In the resisance group he belongs to Ducker gets his orders from his look-alike Dorbeck. It never becomes fully clear if Dorbeck is only an inner voice or a real existing person.
The novel illustraties this element by keeping the visits of Dorbeck always short and most of all by making Dorbeck immune to a camera. All the photographs with Dorbeck on it gets lost or miscarry. In this respect Dorbeck is almost a vampire.
After the war the acts of resistance of Ducker are interpreted as acts of betrayal. As a witness in his defence Ducker tries to find Dorbeck, but in vain.
This is in my opinion the most clever element of the movie. Just like in "The sixth sense" (1999, M. Night Shyamalan) one has to watch the film a second time to convince oneself that indeed some of Ducker's acts (or at least their consequences) could be interpreted as betrayal.
The final scene of the film is however a serious mistake, in more than one respect: It is highly inprobable.
It destroys the multiple interpretability of the story, which was one of its gems.
It is not faithful to the novel.
If the dissatisfaction of writer Willem Frederik Hermans was directed specifically against this final scene, I do agree with him.
"The dark room of Damocles" (1963) is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Willem Frederik Hermans. By 2024 this novel was still in the top 10 of Dutch literature.
As often happens, in the end the writer was not completely satisfied with the final result of the film. In my opinion this final result, with one exception about which more later on, adequately shows the essential elements of the book. These essential elements are:
An avarage person, even a person on the brink of being a loser in peace time, suddenly becomes a member of the resistence in the war.
The novel illustrates the avarage person / loser element by the fact that Ducker (his name) has an ordinary job (running a cigar shop, often the job of a retired socker player), that his wife cheats on him with the neighbor but most of all by emphasizing the fact that Ducker has no facial hair.
In the resisance group he belongs to Ducker gets his orders from his look-alike Dorbeck. It never becomes fully clear if Dorbeck is only an inner voice or a real existing person.
The novel illustraties this element by keeping the visits of Dorbeck always short and most of all by making Dorbeck immune to a camera. All the photographs with Dorbeck on it gets lost or miscarry. In this respect Dorbeck is almost a vampire.
After the war the acts of resistance of Ducker are interpreted as acts of betrayal. As a witness in his defence Ducker tries to find Dorbeck, but in vain.
This is in my opinion the most clever element of the movie. Just like in "The sixth sense" (1999, M. Night Shyamalan) one has to watch the film a second time to convince oneself that indeed some of Ducker's acts (or at least their consequences) could be interpreted as betrayal.
The final scene of the film is however a serious mistake, in more than one respect: It is highly inprobable.
It destroys the multiple interpretability of the story, which was one of its gems.
It is not faithful to the novel.
If the dissatisfaction of writer Willem Frederik Hermans was directed specifically against this final scene, I do agree with him.