User Reviews

"...and they descended upon the earth to strengthen their ranks." - Opening quote, Borgman

"My name is Legion, for we are many." - Mark 5:9. (Signs reading "I am" and "we are" in the play towards the end of the movie.)

"With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image." - Revelation 19:20

Camiel Borgman is a greater demon of hell, but not the Antichrist or Lucifer as other reviewers may cite. "Camiel" and "Borgman" is actually his job title, the etymologies of these names elude to the purpose he serves for Lucifer; his real name is given at the beginning of the movie, "Anton", which is believed to be a lie in an attempt to gain admittance to the house. I will discuss the importance of his real name later. The etymology of "Camiel" is 'acolyte', defined as a youth serving in a religious service or procession, and "Borgman" is 'a man who takes toll; a landlord'. So his literal job title based on his name's etymologies is "Acolyte Landlord", or one who collects tolls for another. These 'tolls' are the souls of Anton's victims and the master in question is Lucifer.

Anton's actions and behaviors are most closely aligned with that of such mythical creatures of an alp or incubus. He is seen as a magical being, as noted when Isobel comments on a magician visiting her. Anton's demonic predilections include manipulating dreams, noted by his dream-weaving over Marina while she's asleep, seducing others into slavery-like obedience, noted by Marina's and eventually Richard's change of heart towards Anton, inciting murderous intent, like with Isobel finishing off the gardener with a huge rock slab after Anton gestures towards him with a slight wave, and generally being the catalyst that draws out the '7 Deadly Sins' of Christian immorality in others. Numerous examples of the latter include wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony throughout the movie, especially with the husband, Richard (wrath: beating Anton to a pulp at beginning, greed: trying to take over his friend's company, etc.) At the intersection of all these sins committed by others is Anton, either directly or indirectly influencing their actions, satiating his demonic appetite, and advancing his evil kingdom.

As a greater demon, Anton has enslaved lesser demons who serve him unconditionally and are constantly striving to win his favor. These servants are represented by his two "friends" at the beginning of the movie and the "mother/daughter" pair later on. Case in point: when Anton and the 2 women drive past Ludwig and Pascal, Pascal phones Anton to ask why they fell out of "favor" with him. Later in the movie, his servants put on a play to entertain and honor Anton. Additionally, Anton's 'hounds of hell' are there to usher in his reign, but he chastises them for arriving too soon.

The souls of the children and young babysitter of the family are coveted by Anton, as only children is Anton interested in. This is why, at the beginning of the movie, he chooses the household based on the fact that it has children's toys in the front yard. His minions and he gradually win them over through manipulation and seduction. Once they "drink the Kool-Aid", a sign of ultimate obedience and recognition of demonic sovereignty, the children's backs are branded by the mark of Lucifer (which is shown that Anton also bears) and their souls are culled from the earth, depicted as entering the forest at the end of the movie.

The story of the 'White Child' that Anton narrates to the children is a parable in which Anton is the cripple, "Antonius". The story is of an angel (white child) falling from heaven (above the clouds) and into the depths of hell (the bottom of a deep lake with a terrible beast in it). In the story, Anton volunteers to save the mother's child after all others would not. The villagers wrongly placed their trust in Jesus for the salvation of the child, which Anton chastises them in the narrative, stating, "Jesus is only concerned about Himself". The etymology of "Anton" is 'priceless', so placing one's faith in Anton is synonymous with placing one's faith in something that is priceless, an obvious parallel to two of the '7 Deadly Sins': idolatry and greed. The moral of the story is the same as the moral of the movie: that we should put our faith in Anton, not Jesus. After all, Anton Camiel Borgman is by etymological namesake the Priceless Acolyte Landlord.

When your title character isn't really a character, it creates some friction between audience and filmmaker. On top of that, you have a tone that seems to straddle a couple of different genres (horror and black comedy), and the film ends up asking a lot of that audience. I think I've figured it out, though.

The title character is not human, he's a spirit. When we first see him he's living in some underground bunker when three men (including a priest fresh off of saying mass) root him out. He escapes and wakes up two others sleeping in small holes in the ground. All three run off. He then goes from house to house, asking for a bath. Most people, obviously, slam the door on him. He simply walks off to the next house. He does eventually come to a house where the husband beats Borgman for implying an acquaintance with his wife. The wife, out of pity after the husband leaves, then invites the hobo looking vagrant in for a bath, a meal, and a place to sleep.

Borgman than takes over. He entrances the couple's children with stories of a child in the clouds. One of his fellow sprites seduces the au pair living in the house (but doesn't actually have sex with her). And Borgman invests the wife's dreams with visions of violence from her husband, whom she immediately attacks after waking up. There's something interesting about the seduction as well. Borgman's effects on the wife induces some kind of lust for him within her, but he's completely uninterested in sex, just like his fellow sprite. When the wife first comes to him, begging for him to touch her, he nonchalantly says, "I'm watching TV." There's a complete disinterest in sex from these sprites.

This is really where the odd tone comes into play. Am I supposed to be laughing at this? Scared of it? I wasn't scared, so I chose the laughter, and rolled with it. The movie became a black comedy in my eyes, and I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the twisted path.

In the end, after wife has killed husband and wife has met her own end, Borgman and his associates collect the children and au pair and disappear into the woods. There's no lesson to learn. Borgman was malicious, and the only way to make him turn his sights on you is to invite you into his home. He doesn't go after the people who slam the doors on his face. He doesn't just set his sights on the husband who beat him, but he tears apart the wife with the same cool focus.

It's almost like there is a lesson, and that there is evil in the world that can't be accommodated. Invite the evil in, treat it kindly, and it will still have no objective other than to destroy you. The only thing to do is to prevent evil from coming into your house.

It's a fascinating movie that requires some unpacking from the audience, but that's part of the fun. It's not great (maybe I'll change my mind on that over time, though), but the effort that the audience puts to take in what the movie has to offer ends up being worthwhile.

I had heard about "Borgman" as being a movie about some guy, apparently a fallen angel, who slowly destroys an affluent family from within by sheer cunning plus a few little supernatural tricks like affecting their dreams. I happen to think that's pretty damned creepy, so I watched the movie.

That's basically what happens in the movie, too, except the master "Borgman" guy (who looks like a cross between Max Von Sydow and Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson) has some help from some buddies of his who are just as evil and cunning as he is.

He invites them in as gardeners after he manages to wrap the lady of the house around his finger by putting on a "poor abused tramp who hasn't had a wash" act. The thing is, though, is that I just don't buy the lady of the house coming to care about him as much as she did. I mean, she practically begs him to stay. For some reason I can believe that he can affect people's dreams, but the ease with which he gains total control of her makes it a little lame. It's like he's almost omnipotent, so there's too little conflict. Like pitting Professor X versus, I dunno, Randy Quaid.

The same goes for when one of his buddies (Pascal) transforms the house nanny from a sweet, kind of airheaded young woman into a vicious shrew who suddenly hates her boyfriend and fawningly loves Pascal. I don't know; it's like, I know they're fallen angels and all, or at least one of them is. But it's just not as interesting when they have these superhuman powers of manipulation. Dude even Jim Jones would have to take at least a few days plus a position of esteem -- not a damn gardener living in a shed -- to completely turn someone to their will.

The movie is still very well-made, I just couldn't buy these awesome powers the Borgmen had. And oh yeah, they go around murdering people in broad daylight without the police being on to them at all, which also made the movie more boring than disturbing. Like, they go to the family doctor's office and just shoot him in the head without even a silencer. I guess their Deus Ex Machina Fallen Angel powers kept the police from caring about it.

Without giving away too much, the Borgmen eventually wind up triumphant. This left me with the question, "what was the point?" Not the point the Borgmen had of recruiting new members, I got that. No, it's like, what was the point of this movie? What's it trying to say? "Here, watch these imaginary fallen angels ruin a family for two hours"? Without a real-world analog to really link these events to, it ultimately comes across as an extremely well-crafted but kinda lightweight flick.

I'm still not quite sure what the film is trying to say, what it is about, it does seem like it is saying something, but in a way that is only logical within the film itself. If that makes any sense. It's a dark film about some people taking over some other people without getting to know why. It all happens in a designer house and a large garden surrounded by nature, forest. The further you go along in this puzzle (which tends to be quite slow in the first half and more paced in the second half), the more you understand what's going on but only cause you see a plan being revealed but still not knowing really what the goal is, or the meaning. It never get's explained fully but this tension is what keeps you watching it. At times brutal, funny and reflective upon society towards certain members who are let's say, not so fortunate vs the fortunate. In a way, it's payback time to those who have it all and don't know what they've got. Not sure that covers it all. At the end of the film I did feel a sense of conclusion and awe of it all, not knowing exactly what I just saw, just knowing I liked being played for the duration of this work. Would like to see it again.

Who equates horror with the Netherlands? Windmills, tulips, cocoa, and Hans Brinker all come to mind but none of these things are cause for alarm. Director Alex van Warmerdam evidently wants to change your mind about Dutch stereotypes with "Borgman".

This is one strange film. Who, or more importantly, what is Borgman? In the opening scenes, we follow a group of locals including a gun- toting priest, roust Borgman from his underground home in a forest. No explanation is given about why a mob is after this person, yet the inclusion of the priest hints that Mr. B. might be something other than human. Mr. B. alerts a few other underground dwellers that the jig is up and runs away. Mr. B. wanders onto the property of an evidently well-to-do couple in a boxlike house, asks to take a bath and when turned away by the man of the house, Mr. B. insinuates he "knows" the wife. A beating commences and Mr. B finally gets the attention of the wife who is feeling guilty over her husband's violence.

So far, so good. Borgman worms his way into the lives of the family he's "adopted", aided and abetted by the wife who appears to be drawn to this dirty homeless man. The wife keeps her new friend out of the sight of her husband and bad things happen. About halfway through this unsettling story, all the tension and suspense is allowed to spiral out into surreal episodes that eventually become numbing. Borgman has friends. We don't know who or what they are. Two women might be able to become dogs. The family's gardener and his wife are destroyed in the film's most unpleasant scene, allowing Borgman to take the gardener's place. Shorn of his beard, he goes unrecognized. Scant reason for everything that happens during the second half of the film is where the story fails. It becomes boring. Since we cannot penetrate the motivations of the lead character or his allies, it's difficult to care what happens to whom. The director tightens the noose for an hour and then it all goes slack.

The are some memorable visuals here, especially the bodies in the water. Many questions are asked of the viewer, but no resolution or answers are given to reward your attention. The ending is both abrupt and frustrating. One suspects that the director and screenplay refused to give any easy answers, leaving the viewer to either think this is one amazing metaphysical satire. Or maybe you just got your head messed with for two hours and ended up with a headache trying to figure out what wasn't there to begin with. Five stars for the performance of Jan Bijvoet as the title character and the aforementioned visuals. Now, about those dogs...

There are horror films that make you scream, horror films that make you jump, horror films that make you laugh, horror films that make you wince and horror films that make you sick to your stomach. Then there are horror films that just creep you out. These films leave you with a feeling of uneasiness and a palpable sense of dread. They are the type of films you end up thinking about long after you've seen them and ignite those same creepy feelings all over again. "Borgman" is one such film. This Danish film by director Alex Van Warmerdam creeps you out from the beginning and doesn't let go – even after the end. The film opens with a group of town leaders gathering knives, guns, and pitch forks to go after something or someone that has obviously disturbed them greatly. Turns out it's the title-character, who along with several henchman /women, have taken to living in underground compartments. Flushed from their lairs by the inflamed citizenry, they scatter and Borgman (Jan Bijvoet) ends up knocking on the door of a somewhat affluent suburban family. He asks to take a bath. Refused entry to the home and beaten up by the owner (Jeroen Perceval) after Borgman insinuates he knows his wife (Hadewych Minis), the wife takes pity on Borgman and lets him convalesce in a guest house. Slowly, Borgman insinuates himself into her life. He cleans himself up, gets hired on as the new gardener and is soon joined by his compatriots. Together, they insinuate themselves into the lives of the husband, the children, and even their nanny. What is Borgman's plan? How far is he willing to go to ensure its success? What happened to the old gardener? What is the strange scar that can be seen in the center of Borgman's back and in the same spot on all of his co-horts? What are they doing to the children? Why are they doing what they're doing? Why? Why? WHY? Warmerdam, who appears in the film as one of Borgman's cronies, leaves you with no answers, just a hell of a lot of questions, compounded by some of the eeriest scenes and unnerving imagery this side of Charles Laughton's "The Night of the Hunter". His "Borgman" is the type of film of film that leads to lengthy post-film discussions… and at least one restless night of sleep.

Technically, Borgman is very well made. It's very well shot, the acting is great and the film for a long time really induced discomfort. It had me going "Where is this going? What is going on? Why is this happening? What does this mean?". But at a certain point the film just fizzles out.

It builds and builds but instead of there being a climax there's just...nothing really. Just a strange, depressing ending. I didn't like how it ended as the film promises so much yet doesn't deliver. Not in my opinion anyway.

A film needs to have a proper ending which has an impact because of what went before. Where things add up to something. It's like a song where after the last note you go "Wow, that was a good song.". The ending of Borgman just left me depressed and thinking there wasn't any real point to the film.

There's so much so well executed in this film. Alex van Warmerdam really knows how to direct, how to create a mood, how to shoot something and yet there's something lacking here as I haven't got the slightest clue as to what to make of it all. And that's a shame as, as I said there's a lot in this picture that's good.

It's like the script was 75% done when they started shooting. It's like it tells you it's got something interesting to say and subsequently keeps its mouth shut.

5/10

Long after the watching, I kept asking me: "What the hell is this?..." Why, Why, why?....

Why do those people intend to kill a peaceful ordinary couple of law abiding citizens who live in the suburbs? And why not simply not kill them in the most natural and simple way? Why impersonating gardeners to do this? And what is the meaning of the theatre in this same garden?

And who are those guys sleeping underground, in the forest?

All along the watching, you never stop asking questions to yourself.

And after the film, you still have NO ANSWER.

But I ADORE that. It's absolutely jubilating.

And if you watched only this kind of features, you would certainly become nuts.

Go, run to see it !!!!

Alex van Warmerdam's darkest and most disturbing film to date is also his best, perfectly balancing black humour and psychological terror. After having been rooted out of their carefully hidden underground lairs, a group of strange vagabonds led by the calculating and enigmatic Camiel Borgman (fabulous performance by Flemish actor Jan Bijvoet) slowly but surely infiltrates the life of a well-to-do family. The titular character himself manipulates his way into the house of a rich but bored married couple (Jeroen Perceval and Hadewych Minis) by getting himself brutally beaten up by the husband, after which the wife, driven by both guilt and curiosity, secretly invites him into their lives. The stranger's mystique grabs hold of her more and more, until she begs him to stay when he tells her he is leaving. After that moment, there is no turning back for the family, as Borgman and his co-conspirators stop at nothing to take over, with deadly consequences. The result is an hallucinatory film that holds the middle between being an absurd comedy and a nightmarish horror movie about the seemingly familiar but ultimately inexplicable 'Other' permeating everyday life completely until it has utterly changed into something else entirely. It's 'them' versus 'us', the unknown world outside corrupting the familiar surroundings inside, but which side we are (supposed to be) on is never clear: do we go with this bizarre revolution of the dispossessed have-nots against the haves, or will we choose the side that lives a safe but dull life of complacent banality and conservative conformity? Bijvoet's Borgman is a cold and unfathomable force of nature, a subtle instigator of change who will stop at nothing to achieve his goal, though it's never clear just what his aim is. Opening with a citation we are to assume is Biblical – '…and they came down to Earth to replenish their ranks', which in the end is exactly what has transpired – the film suggests Borgman and his minions (which includes Van Warmerdam himself in a supporting performance) may be something other than human. You might even be inclined to think they may not even be there at all, existing only as cruel manifestations of the wife's psychological angst, but they are also destructively active outside of her direct environment as well. It's this surreal confusion about the protagonist's goals and existential status, combined with outrageous but thoroughly hilarious instances of dark humour and sombre witticisms that make Borgman an unusual but intriguing horror story, not to mention one of the finest Dutch films in many years.

One of his years most interesting and most strange films. Alex van Warmerdam directs his newest creation a story about a family whose idyllic life is disrupted one day to the next by a mysterious stranger's Camiel arrival, who seems to be homeless at first sight. The events take on a surreal twist and you're left unable to guess what'll happen next. It turns out the homeless man isn't what he says he is and the friendly woman whose been hiding him in her house without her abusive husband's knowledge soon realizes that the man's presence slowly turns everything on its head. The kids start acting strange, as does the whole family. Everything just seems to be off and bizarre. During the films 113 min. so many questions are raised that I found myself not even caring what will happen with the family in the end I just wanted answers already, then the director, not to kindly, kind of leaves the whole thing up to the viewers so I ended up kind of just sitting there after the film ended thinking WTF? Warmerdam is basically an unknown director, but in the Benelux States they quite like him, mainly for his grotesque humor that he is able to mix with drama intelligently. Borgman is like that too. You can tell that they definitely didn't want to make a film where they explained everything like they were talking to a child. When we find out information it's a long slow process and just brings up more questions. Because of that the whole film can be described as uncertainty. There are a lot of things that are hard to categorize, whole characters too, but what was really missing was the motivation. It's clear that there is some sort of evil beyond that which can be found in humans and the film is laced with religious imagery (Camiel, was the angel who banished Adam and Eve from paradise). While being able to feel predict the ending you still don't get a sense of why all this is happening, it's even hard to determine at the end who were the "good guys" and who weren't. One thing is for sure you can't really feel sorry for the family, but Camile and co.'s methods are exactly right either. Even with the genre classification we run into trouble. Though it does you typical thriller characteristics it doesn't take the anxiety levels to the extreme. I would say it was an art film, or maybe a drama. The black, grotesque humor is absolutely in a dominant position when naming characteristics, without becoming melodramatically cliché. When there is humor its funny. One of the most interesting things is how Warmerdam tells the story, with mysticism. Its something you can never see, but its always creeping in the background. It kind of reminds me of Twin Peaks. I also have to mention the sterility of the set that really suits the film. The film is minimalist, its stripped and uses basic techniques, and calming shots that just seem to emphasis the absurdity of the film. None of the actors really faced a challenge with their characters, that all seem to repress their frustration and emptiness. The wife is the true protagonist, she sits at home all day and paints, but they have a nanny, who takes care of the kids instead of her. It shows the emptiness of the materialistic western world. They all seem to fear the stranger but never notice they are destroying their own lives on their own without needing outside help. That's kind of the point of the film, that the evil is inside we kind of let it take over. All in all it remains to be decided if this is a serious, symbolism filled thriller or a big head trip and bluff. There is evidence of both so its worth watching to decide for yourself. But don't be surprised if you end up confused. One thing is for sure, it's one of the strangest films of the last little while. If you don't feel like tearing your hair out at the mention of European art films then its worth a look. It will make you think about it for a few days at least. So for that I gave it a 7/10, but this is a pretty sick film so it's not for everyone. https://www.youtube.com/user/Videodromeblog

I'm not sure if this review will contain 'real' spoilers. It will contain a possible insight that I didn't think of beforehand. But it's something I feel is essential to talk about while reviewing this work of art.

Don't get me wrong, I won't really 'spoiler'. It will just add my personal perspective which you normally only develop slowly in a huge ride of confusion, but hearing of this beforehand might actually help you to 'feel' the movie better. It won't make the movie much more 'concrete', it will still be a ride of confusion, your own little puzzle, because it's meant that way. This here is just my personal insight, essential for this review, yet it is up to yourself to decide if you want to read this.

Borgman...

I visited this movie not knowing what to expect at all. I had always been intrigued by Warmerdam's earlier work. The lovely collage of characters he always paints for us. Their quirks, their failures, their personal mistakes, their confrontations and egos. The dark and harsh realism of the characters and their lives is deeply compelling to me. Soon I found that I missed this in Borgman. I didn't know why, but the characters seemed disconnected, outlandish with dialogs of grotesque and epic stature. I felt I was watching a bad play in which nothing really connected. In retrospect this makes sense, yet it still irks me in some way. The disconnection seems a little too forced for my liking, making the already bizarre world and setting of the movie a suddenly distant whisper instead of a compelling yet confusing conversation.

But that is about the only problem I had. This disconnection serves a purpose.

This movie is highly symbolical. I never analyze movies in a dramatic way, yet this one at first made me feel I did. I thought I was maybe taking it too far, but in the end I really don't think so.

What are we watching? You'll probably wonder about this right until the end. There really is no moral judgment on what happens here and that will leave you in a state of confusion. You may think there is, but think again afterward.

This is a case of good versus evil. About religion, about demons, about hate, about the devil, about tainted souls. Good versus evil can be interpreted in many ways of course. As for me, the movie made me interpret this in a very folkloric Christian way. The movie even starts of with a priest aggressively chasing after our main character. That is the bluntest statement in the movie, and it even opens up with it. It doesn't end there though. Not forcibly, but this time more subtle the movie hints us towards religious statements, comparisons, reminders, and folkloric tales of nightmare and death.

This family we see. Are they good? They are rich, seem the perfect family, they're successful in many ways. But are they really? Then Borgman comes along, the vagrant. Dirty, hunted down. He psychology messes with the family's life. Is he evil?

I ask these questions because in retrospect it is hard to feel bad for this family. It is hard to not laugh at what Borgman does to them. We laugh as if it's all a bad play. We feel disconnected from them. If we really feel Borgman is evil, than why do we laugh at his victims demise? Why aren't we horrified?

The dialog which I mentioned earlier certainly serves as a tool to further develop a disconnection between us and the family. It also serves as a symbolic reminder of what is really going on here, and in it's grotesqueness it's also a reminder of the biblical proportions of the subject good versus evil.

I certainly love how Warmerdam seems to play with symbols here. How he hints and teases, but never really plainly reveals. How he tries to influence our minds to connect to characters a certain way.

In the end, I do not know what was good and what was evil. Maybe this whole movie was about making the world a less corrupted place, albeit in a very unconventional way. But then again, maybe this is simply about evil feeding of us and dragging us in, harvesting the mistakes we make in our lives, feeding of the hatred we feel in our hearts and towards each other.

But can we really say who was good or evil here? This movie will make you feel you know what happened, but did you really? Will you also remember how you laughed at the most horrible moments and how you felt disconnected at the better times? Is this family really any good? Do you even like them at all? Maybe they are the most corrupted characters in this whole movie?

This movie will make you think and think, over and over again. I highly admire Warmerdam's ability to play on us and make us react in the exact opposite way we normally would. We are being played here. We are being served our own mental dilemma.

If Pasolini's Teorema and Haneke's Funny Games had a less successful child it may be Alex van Warmerdam's surreal, horror...home invasion thriller?? Now, don't get me wrong Borgman is not a bad film. It's just missing that little, often intangible, elusive, "something." It stars Jan Bijvoet as the enigmatic, cunningly evil, Camiel Borgman. The film is precisely directed and photographed, along with strong performance from Bijvoet and Hadewych Minis in particular. There is not a shot wasted, soaking in all of the natural beauty of the secluded area of The Netherlands where the film takes place. Aesthetic beauty flows from every shot, even the violent scenes, which is an impressive accomplishment. The story begins with a quote about how "they" shall come to Earth and strengthen their ranks…cut to priest taking communion…cut to priest toting a shotgun and then joining a couple of unnamed young men—also with guns—in search of the antagonists (yet oddly protagonists too) who they discover in an underground bunker in the forest, but Borgman is a step ahead and escapes. With the biblical evil sounding quote and the symbolism of Borgman and some of his lackeys rising from below the earth (added with some of the surrealism later in the film) it could be that Borgman and crew are not your garden-variety violent vagrants, but something wholly evil and not of this world. On the run from the priests Borgman is turned away from an upper-class Dutch family and after insinuating that he knows the wife, Marina (Minis), is beaten by the husband. Borgman, seemingly unphased returns and the manipulation begins. And like Eve in the Garden Marina is the first to fall. Borgman (and his crew) casts a spell on everyone they come in contact with, though this is nothing which the viewer can see…maybe it is pure evil. By the time Borgman shaves his large beard and cuts his hair, taking a job at the house as the gardener without the husband noticing it is the same guy he beat the s**t out of a few days earlier, you're in disbelief at what Warmerdam is asking of you, but if you are willing to except this and other surrealistic stretches Borgman can at least be worth the watch. The way in which Warmerdam builds sexual tension through story between Marina and Borgman is titillating. Personally this is one of the main aspects of the film that keep you hanging around. The themes are there. Warmerdam had it: using the character of Borgman to explore the nature of evil, manipulation, classism, what someone is willing to sacrifice and the dynamics of marriage. These issues are brought up, in most cases presented quite heavy handedly, as when Marina on a couple of occasions goes on raving diatribes about how they should realize how good they have it and essentially feel guilt over their privileged status. The problem is that in the end, Warmerdam, who himself plays one of the evil vagrants, leaves all of these highly explorative thematic intrigues flat and vague. I am not saying all questions must be answered; it is only that the thematic themes that lay in the subtext should have been strengthened. For example: in Teorema the viewer can see, through stronger writing and better overall direction, what each character sees and can gain in the mysterious visitor, even though Pasolini's film is as abstract and at times surreal as Borgman. There are very striking images in Borgman. One of the best and most complex images is the reoccurring scene of Borgman nude sitting on Marina's sweat drenched chest as she sleeps at night; a direct reference to Henry Fuseli's famous painting, The Nightmare, in which an incubus sits nude, hunched at the knee, on the chest of a sleeping woman. This fits perfectly with the overwhelming atmosphere of death and sexuality in the film. These scenes are magnificent, perfectly filmed, and the audience is never sure if it is actually happening (which is possible in the world of Borgman) or if it is only a nightmare that Marina is having. Every time this image is evoked Marina awakes in a cold sweat at the moment the nude Borgman leaps from her chest and exits the room. More of this layered nuance would have done much in assisting every facet of the movie. Was Borgman as good as it could have been? No. But if you want a well directed, well acted, playfully dark, surrealistic, psycho-sexual thriller, infused with the type of subtle dark humor of Pablo Larrain's Tony Monero, then this whimsical, pied-piper of a film is going to do delight, if nothing else.