Sweet Dreams — Ena Sendijarevic

A pregnant woman nearing delivery self-pleasures by rubbing her privates against a bedpost. An attempted murder, in a flavor reminiscent of the book of Genesis, sours and turns into a wealth of embarrassment, the very absurdity of violence inverted. The wife of a Dutch sugar plantation owner in Indonesia is chastised by her husband for speaking in the tongue of the natives. Suicide slows into a fully cinematic stasis, beautiful and defacing in its self-vapidity. This is the kooky, evocative world of Sweet Dreams, the new film co-produced by the Netherlands, Indonesia, Sweden, and Réunion (an island off the coast of Madagascar under the department of France) and the sophomore picture from the Bosnian-born, Dutch,based Ena Sendijarević.

Dutch colonial control in Indonesia wanes right as the sugar plantation owner Jan (Hans Dagelet) dies. His wife, Agathe (Renée Soutendijk), chose not to help her husband in his final moments, coughing up a storm in their marital bed shortly after one of his frequent, non-consensual conquests of housemaid Siti (Hayati Azis). The shifting dynamics between these three, encapsulated in the events surrounding the old man’s demise, glimpses into the broader antagonistic and somewhat obfuscating relationship between Dutch colonists and the indigenous subaltern. Jan and Agathe have been here long enough that the latter shows not just a competence with the new tongue, but a comfortable command of it, which churns her husband’s military-grade chauvinism.

Read more at In Review Online.