Great actor and friend Thomas Wander Oerlemans just got a year older. I believe this is a good moment to tell you all about our ultimate film acting (and directing) test. Mr. Wander Oerlemans performed this monologue in theater, as the late writer Eriek Verpale has had intended. We wanted to see if we could do it for film. So we did. Enjoy.
a film by Joggem Simons and Hidde Simons, with Thomas Wander Oerlemans written by Eriek Verpale.
About BERNARD:
One man´s story. One man´s truth. Can you forgive him for what he did?
In this 70 minute monologue, Bernard has a hard time understanding what has just happened to him. In trying to figure it out he relives his most painful memories, by telling his life story. Bernard's childhood memories are tainted by an unloving mother and an almost obsessive fondness for his younger sister. In later life, the dysfunctionality of his childhood haunts him in his own relationships with his wife and daughter. Though Bernard tries to withhold it, his biggest secret slowly gets revealed. Can you forgive him for what he did?
BERNARD is Dutch spoken and is available with English subtitles.
Credits
Bernard Van de Wiele
Thomas Wander Oerlemans
directed and produced by
Joggem Simons
Hidde Simons
original text (OLIVETTI 82) by
Eriek Verpale
Wow... I've never heard of a 70-minute monologue! That's... intense. Is it like a one-man show? Or do we cut to other things and hear the monologue as narration at a point? Just curious.
We didn't either. ;-) But we did know it is possible to mostly depend on one person telling his/her story. A good excample is the movie My Dinner With Andre.
In our movie we totaly depend on one character telling its story. So all the cutting to other things is only in our heads. And what our imagination does with what he tells us in this painful story.
Looking good. Did similar thing directing my wife (then girlfriend) of a monologue by a Slovenian writer Miha Mazzini....her performance was so spot on (0 acting skill), many believed it was a documentary stuff...