Director: Harvey Kadijk
Writer: Harvey Kadijk & Jolijn van Dulken
Cast: Lieke Witteveen, Kevin Wekker, Marcia Rijssel, Sven Olvira
Running time: 13mins
Over the years running Indy Film Library, one of the greatest pleasures has been watching Netherlands-based filmmaker Harvey Kadijk hone his skills. Two seasons ago, that saw him really hit his stride with LOST – a towering work, defined by its emotional maturity and its innovative approaches to the way memory and filmmaking have evolved in modern life.
Following that was always going to be tough – and while 360° ought to be judged on its own merits, it is hard not to see it as a part of Kadijk’s broader body of work. After years of steady development, this is perhaps the first instance where the progress has stalled a little.
A tightly produced, beautifully shot short film, the story follows Alice and Jaden – a couple both struggling with cocaine addiction in Amsterdam. At just 13 minutes long, where 360° really gets into the weeds, is in its departure from Kadijk’s usually resolute narrative discipline.
Previous efforts, such as LOST and DION, have had a consistent focus on a single protagonist. Other people exist in those stories – but they are understood from the perspective of one relatable core character. That is an important concession to make when dealing with incredibly concise run-times. However badly an artist might want to tell a complex, layered story, with overlapping perspectives and storylines, the best short films come when a filmmaker gives us the time and space to understand the world they are building. Reducing the number of core characters, and venues are usually the way to deliver on that front.
We begin the story with Alice (Lieke Witteveen), a former professional gymnast, whose addiction has wrecked her career, and nearly ended her life. Introducing herself to a peer-support group, Alice delivers every detail of her grim past through a performative smile – including the tragedy of a failed pregnancy – but as she reaches the end, the weight of everything catches up with her, and the façade crumbles. It is a remarkable piece of acting – to have been false in one moment (not in a pantomime bad-performance way, but in a way we can all identify with, of putting a brave face on something we are really hurt by) to so raw and real in another is a great reflection on Witteveen’s abilities.
After the session ends, we meet Jaden (Kevin Wekker), who has driven to the venue to collect his partner, seemingly unaware she plans to get clean. When she recommends that he considers doing the same, however, he responds aggressively, and drives away – the camera in tow. We follow him as he scores cocaine from his dealer (the imperious presence of Sven Olvira); we sit with him looking out across the stunning Ij waterfront as he smokes some of it; and we stand by his side during an encounter with his mother (Marcia Rijssel), who has some life-changing news.
Each actor is excellent. Each segment of the script from Kadijk and Jolijn van Dulken (who also collaborated on DION) is well written – at least in the time allotted to it. But Jaden’s story is delivered in a hurried fashion, which even though it is delivered in technically fine form, doesn’t give us time and space to understand or empathise with it. Each aspect is pushed along in record time, with all the emotional impact of checking off items from a shopping list, going through the motions to make sure we and Jaden are in the right place for the film’s rapidly-approaching final meeting with Alice.
This feels like a slight disservice to each of the performers, who could have been given a lot more to do – and would have excelled with more to get their teeth into. But it also feels like it undercuts the thing which often makes Kadijk’s shorts so compelling: an understanding of how to let the emotional intensity of his subject matter breathe.
In DION and LOST, we are given plenty of contemplative periods of stillness – but 360° largely deprives us of this. A longer run-time might have allowed Kadijk to have his cake and eat it too in that regard – providing more opportunities for us to sit with the sumptuous imagery of Jeffry H Bakker’s photography, while also giving us the chance to unpack how we identify with the characters and their feelings. But I appreciate that may be easier said than done, due to time and budget constraints – and in that case, the only other option would be to cut something to more rigorously focus on a single character, and one or two locations.
Matters aren’t helped by a final shot that may serve to confuse some people. Having directed us to find something on Alice’s cleanly polished table at the end of the film, only to have our expectations subverted, here the camera suddenly loses its precision. Something which should be the centre of the universe for Alix, Jaden and the audience, is delivered in a way that is hard to make out – and what ought to be the definitive image of the film will subsequently be lost on a few viewers who are unfamiliar with what they are being shown.
In many ways, 360° still manages to represent what Harvey Kadijk does best as a filmmaker. It is a socially important story, which makes fantastic use of the iconic streets of Amsterdam. Its dialogue is well written, and delivered impeccably by the talented cast he has assembled. But with so much crammed into its meagre 12-minute run-time, it is not as cleanly distilled, direct and impactful as his previous two outings. Good in its own right, but not close to scaling the same heights that we know Kadijk’s filmography is capable of.
