It is an irresistible opening sentence that will have set many a filmmaker onfire: ‘My first contact with the secrets that would rule my life was thediscovery I made one lost afternoon in the attic of our house in Voorburg. ‘The life discussed here is that of the journalist Alexander Münninghoff(1944-2020), whose family history ( The ancestor ) takes place in manycountries and covers much of the fraught history of the 20th century. Youcould call Diederik van Rooijen’s eight-part series of the same name a longrun-up to that first sentence.
The ancestor ties in nicely with our earlier observation that we live in anew golden age for Dutch series, in which ambitions and budget are betteraligned than was the case in the past. This new Dutch wave does much betterjustice to the qualities of makers and actors.
The find referred to in the first sentence is a German military helmet with aswastika on it, a souvenir of Münninghoff’s father, who was a member of the SSas a young man and fought on the Eastern Front, and who also maintained theatmosphere after the war. of the comrades could not let go. In _The ancestor_Münninghof goes in search of the choices made in his family, going back threegenerations, and how they continue to influence today.
Silke Bodenbender and Gijs Scholten van Aschat in The ancestor.Figurine Dinandvan der Wal
The biggest intervention Van Rooijen has made to be able to tell the events isto let go of the chronology. The leading perspective is that of the youngMünninghof (Matthijs van de Sande Bakhuyzen) who falls in love with Ellen(Sallie Harmsen) in the late 1960s, thereby also drawing a free-spiritedoutsider’s view into his own family history. Because Ellen is the first tostart asking questions about Alexander’s father, especially after finding somebadly hidden Nazi memorabilia.
The family story begins after World War I in Latvia, where a Dutch businessman(Gijs Scholten van Aschat) is married to a Russian countess of Baltic-Germandescent, a mix of nationalities and loyalties that makes the run-up to WorldWar II extremely complicated for the family. Especially when their son, partlyout of resentment against his domineering father (leave that to Scholten vanAschat), joins the SS and leaves for the Eastern Front to fight the hatedBolsheviks.
Van Rooijen uses the flashbacks as the driving force behind his story, butdeals with them rather lavishly. Whether that works is partly a matter oftaste. It takes a few episodes to get used to the unbridled style, where webounce back and forth between many time slots (flashbacks within flashbacks!),also getting used to the fact that Alexander’s father in his youngerincarnation is played by Robert de Hoog and later, in a beautiful role, byMarcel Hensema, as a man who cannot let go of the past.
Van Rooijen, who shows himself to be a worthy successor to Paul Verhoeven withthe visual flair and the grand gestures, puts up quite a few directional signsto explain the complex map of The ancestor clear, from different colorpalettes to an overly emphatic soundtrack. Sometimes you wish the foot was alittle more off the throttle, to give this incredible family chronicle morebreathing room.
The ancestor