Inside My Heart

Saskia Boddeke collaborates with the well-known Dutch Kamak Theater, an ensemble of professional actors with intellectual disabilities, on a film version of the play "Furia" (Oscar Wagenmans), an opulent baroque period drama about anger, murder, conspiracy, desire, and eroticism. We experience the ensemble members on stage, during rehearsals, and in personal moments. Of course, being on camera is a new and particularly exciting experience for the performers. Boddeke uses the wealth of cinematic possibilities to keep a clear line between imagination and reality, fiction and documentary: the stage is dedicated to the realm of imagination and her film emphasizes this through rich coloration, lighting reminiscent of Caravaggio, and operatic, tableau-like shots that seem to have absconded from a painting. In rehearsals, backstage, and in conversation with the actors, on the other hand, the camera brings us back to the here and now. Yet the boundary between game and reality repeatedly becomes porous. Every now and then, the emotions of the performers confuse imagination with reality. They need to support each other to re-establish the boundary between play and life and they do so in a caring and kind way. With sensitive cinematography, Reinout Steenhuizen and Ruzbeh Babol echo this permeability without elevating it. Saskia Boddeke's film highlights the freedom that lies within the realm of imagination. It also is a touching close-up of human emotions, and it is thanks to the directness and powerful acting of the performers that we leave the cinema with plenty of material for self-reflection.