1983: Fourth Man, The (aka De vierde man) (68th)

What else happened this year? Grenada is invaded by the US, and I know nothing about it other than the year, and that it wasn't much of a fight.  

What is the plot - in one sentence? A writer deals with some possibly religious visions which seem to point to his new lover being a witch, who is likely to kill either him or her other lover.

I don't have time, just spoil it for me? It's not certain that it's her doing, but her two lovers are involved in a crash, the writer survives, and the other one dies. The woman at the heart of the story seemingly finds a new love interest in the hospital, letting the cycle continue.

What is the meaning of the title? She's had three husbands die before she meets the writer character; he's worried about either he or his rival becoming the 'fourth man'

Mother Mary in a facemask! Probably. That's the main guy, the writer getting a haircut, and the little blondie is the femme fatal.
 

Anything that's not aged well? Does a woman get slapped around? No slapping around... though it may be implied that the handsome lover is violent to her? It wasn't depicted. 

Other than that, this is an incredibly Dutch movie, which you'd expect from a Dutch movie filmed and set in the Netherlands. It's Dutch in that the main stars are happy being naked and awkwardly naked throughout the movie. There's a bit where they are having quite uncomfortable looking sex, and he comments that, without breasts, her physique is boy-like, and he then spends time squashing the boobs.

The other lover, who eventually becomes the writer's lover too - is first seen browsing porn in a train station bookshop.

She's shown to have made some home movies, on a reel film, of all of her former husbands on the day of their death, but it's kind of hilarious how much work it takes to get to see them: get reel ready, turn on power, turn out lights, watch movie, repeat. It's also funny that she does the same poses that people would do now for phone footage - weird poses and fake smiles.

Any thoughts? This doesn't take any time to get weird, we're bombarded by some violent and religious imagery from the very beginning - eyes being poked out, blood flowing, Christ on a cross, etc. - and it's not helped by the fact that the main point of view of the story is someone who thrives on being an unreliable narrator. It's unclear, exactly, whether the Mother Mary figure who shows up is real or just a hallucination / figment of his imagination. That's fine, by the way, not everything has to be spelled out.

The movie makes the bisexual romance a good counter to the religious horror of the 'witch'. He has to choose between his faith, his lust for the male model, and his being allured by the witch - all of this culminates when he is fellated by the lover in the graveyard tomb which houses the ashes of all of her former husbands. It's an interesting scene.

Would you recommend this? Yeah I guess so, it was a pretty unpredictable, little bit saucy tale.

Final thoughts? Everyone who drives is shown to drive like a maniac. The model male guy is killed in a car crash (and this justifying all of the 'eye' trauma that the writer had been worrying about), but it was inevtiable when they were driving around like drunken Italians the whole movie.

I quite like that the 'hero' of the movie was just a bit of a dick, too. He's petty, maniuplative, and ruled entirely by emotions, yet he still ends up getting it on with the most attractive male and female in the movie. What a guy.

I imagine at the time this was pretty graphic, but it's less shocking now, it's still interesting though.

 

There you go - finished. If you're interested, you can find the others all here. If you're not interested, you can go fuck yourself. It's not like I'm making any money out of this.