Sweet Dreams

Ena Sendijarevic's 2023 Dutch film is set on a sugar plantation in Indonesia at the start of the twentieth century. When the Dutch owner dies it emerges that the estate has passed to his illegitimate son by his housemaid. His family arrives from the Netherlands to take control. Rather than narrating colonialism directly the film approaches it through absurdity. The Dutch characters move through tropical heat in heavy clothes, try to maintain the order of the house and understand nothing happening around them. The framing is almost always symmetrical and static, which keeps the humour cold. The Indonesian characters are not used as decor; the housemaid's gaze is inside the narrative and the film's tension comes from there. Sendijarevic is a Bosnian-born Dutch director, which keeps the question of who is telling this open outside the film as well. Who it's for: those who like formally bold films about colonialism. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a realistic historical account; the film uses an absurd and cold register.