Movies: Frans Zwartjes

A man and his female helper lather a blindfolded woman's naked body with various foodstuffs....

In a monumental building a group of scientists submit women to obscure experiments in which sexuality and cruelty constantly merge into one another. "Pentimento" is an art-historical term for a hidden image underneath the actual image giving an indic...

Frans Zwartjes and his wife explore their new home, and the sexual tension they've brought with them to it....

Spectator is one of the early masterpieces by Zwartjes. The film explicitly shows one of Frans Zwartjes’ main themes: the relationship between husband and wife. It is a relationship that is strongly marked by power and domination, sexual attraction a...

Frans Zwartjes' two visions of womanhood in Behind Your Walls have all the febrile frustration associated with his previous work. Flesh looks like crisp paper about to be despoiled, a torpid heat reduces movement to fidgets and hesitations. - MIFF...

A strangely-dressed man reaches for some sorbet and then eats it; A playful, expertly-edited excercise from Zwartjes....

Film in three parts. A man and a woman, Trix Zwartjes and Lodewijk de Boer (Zwartjes’s regular actors) circle around each other in a house and outside at the water side. They attract and reject each other....

Zwartjes made many films without dialogue or sound. The music can however be very important. Zwartjes composes it himself, sometimes together with his brother Rudolf and Lodewijk de Boer. Audition is a fine example of a Zwartjes film with an importan...

A man in drag sits on a couch holding a fan. The wallpaper behind him is floral patterned. Although the man does little more than looking around and waving his fan, Zwartjes created enormous tension....

Set on the landing and the stairs of Zwartjes’ new house, then still empty, in The Hague. The filmmaker suggests a mysterious and complex space by using a ‘floating’ camera to film a number of crawling, creeping personages. (MUBI)...

A woman plays with a bird as the camera's gaze is drawn to her legs....

Frans Zwartjes' adaptation of Euripides' tragedy, originally produced for stage by the actresses Josée Ruiter and Çanci Geraerdts....

An experimental look at the sexual life of a couple....

"The Great Magician" - A portrait of Frans Zwartjes (1927-2017), sometimes called 'the most important experimental filmmaker of his time' by the American essayist Susan Sontag....

Two girls nestle beside each other on a couch and try desperately to conceal their mutual craving. Sexuality is suggested through the weird rhythm of the film's editing and the tactile quality of the images. - MIFF...

First full-length experimental feature by filmmaker Zwartjes about an actress, played by Willeke van Ammelrooy, who during the whole film, in continuously changes moods, is busy in her room. Eventually, she is made an offer by telephone. But what off...

First film by Paul de Nooijer, in collaboration with his artistic father Frans Zwartjes. Moving Stills shows a series of photographs by Françoise de Nooijer, which are joined, by means of editing and colour effects, and turned into a moving picture. ...

An experimental short from Dutch filmmaker Frans Zwartjes....

An experimental film by Dutch filmmaker Frans Zwartjes....

A selection of never-before-seen cinema sketches by Zwartjes, compiled by Stanley Schtinter with music from Zwartjes' record Tapes I....