It only looks like a normal butcher's shop at the beginning, but it soon becomes apparent that the meat has a gruesome aspect. The butcher has his perverse fantasies and the butcher's girl doesn't seem to step aside. Titus Muizelaar plays the butcher, Nellie Benner the unflinching butcher's girl.
The film is about the butcher, but also about the young butcher's girl. Only on the outside is it a normal butcher's shop and a normal butcher. It soon becomes clear that the butcher lives for his dark and sexual fantasies. And also the butcher's girl, Roxy, is not entirely innocent. In a fanatical self study, she records everything on video. The butcher penetrates into her imagination, but she in turn penetrates into his head. More than a story, the film is a journey in the imagination.
The butcher is played by the famous theatre actor Titus Muizelaar. He takes total possession of the character of the perverted butcher. Roxy is played by Nellie Benner, who proved in Crepuscule, the previous film by the makers, that she also dares reveal all. The film was made on a small budget and the other roles are played by students at Hugo Metsers' Fame Academy.
PROGRAMMER NOTES
Once upon a time the term fetish actor was invented for this, probably by a French critic. It comes down to an actor who is repeatedly used by one of the same director (or directing couple, as in this case). For instance Johnny Depp is the fetish actor of Tim Burton and Christopher Walken the one for Tony Scott. May be an even better example is Jean-Pierre Léaud as fetish actor of François Truffaut, because the word could have been invented for him.
Counting the present film, Seyferth and Victor Nieuwenhuijzen have made four feature films. In three of them, the actor Titus Muizelaar played an important role. The definition (if it isn't already made, we can do so now) of fetish actor demands more criteria than often playing a role; it comes down to a central figure who is, as it were, the ideal vehicle for the ideas of the film maker. Not entirely like an alter ego, but that must also play a role. The latter is however difficult to proof in a duo direction and hence demands refinement.
Titus Muizelaar is among the top, if not the elite, of Dutch stage actors. He was involved for a long time and shaped the face of the prestigious company Toneelgroep Amsterdam. As an actor, a heavyweight and a very present personality on stage and on the silver screen. Not every film maker will dare to cast an actor who has so much 'theatre' and personality adhering to him. These film makers do that and this is only one example of their cinematographic courage.
GjZ