‘Reedland’ review: A violent crime rocks a rural Dutch community

Dir/scr: Sven Bresser. Netherlands/Belgium. 2025. 111mins

When ageing Dutch reed cutter Johan (Gerrit Knobbe) discovers the physique of a younger lady on his land, his have to uncover the perpetrator of the violent crime sends him down an more and more darkish path. For his debut characteristic, Dutch filmmaker Sven Bresser has returned to the panorama during which he grew up, and successfully contrasts the nation setting, its languid tempo and unchanged traditions, with themes of intolerance, suspicion and guilt.

A compelling sense of foreboding

Bresser’s 2018 Corsica-set quick The Summer season And All The Relaxation performed Venice and Toronto in 2018, and he now involves Cannes Critics’ Week with Reedland; notable for being the primary Dutch characteristic to premiere there since The Polish Bride in 1998. It has a arresting asset in newcomer Knobbe, an expert reed cutter, and its assured visible type might additionally assist entice additional festivals and distributors searching for distinct worldwide voices.

Filmed in Weerribben-Wieden, within the northern Netherlands, Reedland opens with a hypnotic prolonged shot of the wind rustling via an expansive sea of golden reeds. This may change into a repeated visible motif, taking up an more and more oppressive tone as Johan goes additional down his psychological rabbit gap. Johan is, nonetheless, no gung-ho vigilante; the crime has rocked the very foundations of his easy life, during which he harvests, retains a modest residence following the loss of life of his spouse and takes care of his beloved granddaughter Dana (Lois Reinders). His discovery of the half-naked physique of an area lady is a trauma that leaches into each the seemingly-peaceful group and himself, forcing Johan to confront a few of his personal troublesome emotions and needs.

As Johan, Knobbe has a taciturn manner that belies the feelings beneath his weather-beaten floor. He wears the identical stoic expression whether or not he’s quietly consuming his meat and potatoes, indulging in web porn or performing as a hippo alongside Dana within the native youngsters’s play. Occasional flashes of emotion communicate to the love he has for Dana and the anger he feels in direction of the unknown perpetrator of this homicide. He, just like the others of his technology, really feel a duty to protect this panorama from malevolent forces – not solely the killer, however ruthless authorities businesses, decided to show the reedlands right into a extra profitable commodity, the faraway Chinese language, endlessly reducing costs, and, nearer to residence, farming rivals throughout the river, disparagingly known as ‘Trooters’.

It is a proud, defiant, insular group however one in precarious steadiness and, working alongside Bresser’s restrained screenplay, DoP Sam du Pon successfully, if considerably clearly, contrasts the gorgeous vistas with darker imagery; fragmented close-ups of the lifeless lady, the slaughter of a diseased cow. At group occasions – the lifeless lady’s funeral, a city corridor assembly, the native honest – the digital camera lingers on the benign faces of the boys current, younger and outdated, trying, like Johan, to work out who amongst them has the capability be a violent killer.

There’s a palpable sense, too, that one thing much less corporeal could also be at work on these lands, an historic evil that hides within the reedbeds, strikes within the mesmerising twilight smoke from burning reed bales, takes power from the ever-changing climate. Johan is seemingly in tune with this marauding power – or, maybe, is in contact with one thing buried deep inside himself. Bresser retains issues intentionally ambiguous however, whereas the movie by no means fairly ideas over into horror, its assured use of style parts, together with heightened pure sound design from Kwinten Van Laethem, give it a compelling sense of foreboding.