Not even a year ago I probably would have said that 'The Fourth Man' insults my intelligence as a viewer for lacking a good sense of realism among other things, but it really is an unapologetic Catholic fairy tale put into the dress of a thriller. There isn't much about this plot that is realistic, some of it even was played deliberately campy, it seems, I'm especially thinking of the flashbacks that show the deaths of certain characters, if you have seen the film you will know which scene I'm thinking of, it's like out of a Hammer film production. If we wouldn't know better from Paul Verhoeven's body of work we would assume that the film was made by a religious fanatic who really believes in occultism, prevision, the literal truth of the bible and other mythical matters and wants the audience to believe all of them too. 'De vierde man' - if it wants to be cherished - certainly requires its audience to just roll with it and accept those things as a given for the sake of the film.
What really is the intended appeal for the audience is questionable overall since we know from start on that the blonde (Christine) has nothing good in mind for Gerard (while for long passages it plays it relatively straight as a romance where the viewer is supposed to care for both characters) and that it involves fantastic elements, although to which extend those things are true and prevalent we find out during the course of the movie, and I have to say that it goes all the way in both affairs. How it uses homosexuality as a plot device...I don't want to say it trivializes the topic, but it really is used without much psychological depth, it doesn't make Gerard a much more complex character, instead it feels like it's just used to drive along the plot and as such it feels tacked on. But it's funny how this creates a plot situation that is reminiscent of 'Lolita'. Gerard agrees to stay with the blonde just to get to her boyfriend who he is in love with, so Gerard plays the lover in order to reach real love, and again it is sort of a taboo love, certainly not as taboo as the love of Humbert Humbert to the 12-year-old Dolores, but still.
No doubt 'De vierde man' should have an appeal to fans of surrealist cinema with its blunt symbolism and the protagonist's fears turned into physical reality, without the filmmakers giving a priority to plausibility or even coherence, not even coherence of characters. Christine not only is the personified evil who in retrospect can't convince as a being with a soul, but her ability to foresee so precisely how Gerard would act upon her vicious setups can't make her human, and that's where we come full circle, because it is an unapologetic fairy tale and as such it's not necessary for its characters to be convincing human beings, it's enough for them to be human-like. For films though I can not so easily accept this concept and it's a reason why eventually I wasn't all too satisfied with the film. But I have become more open to films that lack plausibility if there is a reason for it. In this case there is a reason but I'm not convinced of the preciousness of it. It made for an entertaining thriller that shows some inventiveness and trippy pictures but that I think substantially is eventually not more than a rather shallow Catholic fantasy.
What really is the intended appeal for the audience is questionable overall since we know from start on that the blonde (Christine) has nothing good in mind for Gerard (while for long passages it plays it relatively straight as a romance where the viewer is supposed to care for both characters) and that it involves fantastic elements, although to which extend those things are true and prevalent we find out during the course of the movie, and I have to say that it goes all the way in both affairs. How it uses homosexuality as a plot device...I don't want to say it trivializes the topic, but it really is used without much psychological depth, it doesn't make Gerard a much more complex character, instead it feels like it's just used to drive along the plot and as such it feels tacked on. But it's funny how this creates a plot situation that is reminiscent of 'Lolita'. Gerard agrees to stay with the blonde just to get to her boyfriend who he is in love with, so Gerard plays the lover in order to reach real love, and again it is sort of a taboo love, certainly not as taboo as the love of Humbert Humbert to the 12-year-old Dolores, but still.
No doubt 'De vierde man' should have an appeal to fans of surrealist cinema with its blunt symbolism and the protagonist's fears turned into physical reality, without the filmmakers giving a priority to plausibility or even coherence, not even coherence of characters. Christine not only is the personified evil who in retrospect can't convince as a being with a soul, but her ability to foresee so precisely how Gerard would act upon her vicious setups can't make her human, and that's where we come full circle, because it is an unapologetic fairy tale and as such it's not necessary for its characters to be convincing human beings, it's enough for them to be human-like. For films though I can not so easily accept this concept and it's a reason why eventually I wasn't all too satisfied with the film. But I have become more open to films that lack plausibility if there is a reason for it. In this case there is a reason but I'm not convinced of the preciousness of it. It made for an entertaining thriller that shows some inventiveness and trippy pictures but that I think substantially is eventually not more than a rather shallow Catholic fantasy.