Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Uneken Very irritating: the diction of the actors, especially their accents, which is typical of people working for national radio and TV in the Netherlands. "Bekakt Goois". In Hoogeveen.

mads leonard holvik I liked this movie because it is about two main characters with noble intentions. At times I wanted to shout out that they must stop being naive and not walk into obviously impossible situations but in the end these noble intentions provide a future and happiness where there was none. I also enjoyed the historical setting and I think dutch is a very interesting language to listen to.

Arconada Three story lines, maybe effective in the book but not in this movie. The most interesting part, only 30 minutes, is the struggle between the protagonist trying to sell his shop and the investor who doesn't want to pay what the shop owner is asking. The rest seems only padding to fill it up to feature length. To bad, because the eye candy is satisfying, i.e. the image of old Amsterdam.

vampierusboy Dutch cinema is always a bit of a hit or a miss. There are some great directors and actors (although most actors focus on theater, as with Gijs Scholten van Aschat who is mainly a theater actor), but the movies have little budget and tend to be bland comedy-dramas. Having said this, budget is being a bit more generous in recent years. Most historical movies from the Netherlands in recent years have a tendency to be action flicks, as with the movies Michiel de Ruyter, Kenau and het Bombardement. Although the visuals due to the higher budgets are stunning (especially in Michiel de Ruyter) they lack a lot in historical accuracy and feeling. Michiel de Ruyter has little historical context and especially the behavior of the characters does not feel like the seventeenth century (children disturbing their father and jumping on his bed for example).Publieke werken succeeds in grasping the stunning visuals used in those other movies but tell a much more layered and original story. Centered around two cousins (fictional characters to be precise) this movie gives them a lot more temporal feel. The dialogue and behavior of most characters is distant, which is in my humble knowledge mostly accurate and a lot of the feelings the characters are experiencing are oppressed and show just a little. This gives a certain historical distance and I find that praise-worthy. On the downside this makes the plot sometimes a bit hard to follow.The effect I loved the most is the lighting in this movie. It felt very natural and accurate, scenes at night where mostly lit by oil lamps or candles and the scenes inside are mostly darker even when it is day. Although probably some effect was used to get this it felt as a very natural portrayal of a society where electricity was not readily available, although around the corner, as the movie is set in 1888.The biggest downside to this movie, coherent to a lot of Dutch movies, was in the audio mixing. For some reason Dutch movies tend to mix the spoken lines softly and the music really loud. Maybe this is due to the reason I watched this movie on television, but still it is a trend. As a native speaker of Dutch this makes some lines for me hard to understand. If you are watching with subtitles this would probably be of no concern to you.I give this movie 8 out of 10. A historical movie which let you experience the historical distance of his subjects, good acting, magnificent visuals, original plot and deep characters.