Part of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s mission is to foster greater understanding through world cinema. This year 72 Foreign Language films were submitted for Golden Globes consideration. Here is an overview of one of them.

The Paradise Suite is a mosaic of loosely related stories set in contemporary Amsterdam. We follow a number of immigrants who have come to the Netherlands in different ways to improve their lives. Their stories seem unrelated. A young woman is forced into prostitution, an African man is trying to eke out a living picking flowers, a former war criminal runs a crime ring, a famous orchestra conductor and his young son struggle, a grieving mother is looking for revenge for the killer of her child. As the film progresses their narratives converge, or briefly interact. In a quiet way the story moves toward a climax that leaves us with mixed and complex emotions.

The film is an unusual type of co-production between Dutch, Swedish and Bulgarian film funds and actors. What is more, hardly a word of Dutch is spoken. All actors battle their way through life in broken English. Still, The Paradise Suite was well received in the Netherlands. It received high marks in the press and at film festivals, Toronto among them.

The film captures an intimate sense of life in Amsterdam from the outsider’s perspective. The dark, unwelcoming, violent underbelly of the beloved city is laid bare. This is the way many newcomers experience Amsterdam, but not the Dutch themselves. Moreover, director Joost van Ginkel manages to weave together the pressing themes of our time: the European immigration crisis; the wealth and income gap; the troubling side of ‘legal’ prostitution; the disastrous Srebrenica massacre (1995), which has left open wounds in Dutch society. The film is quietly confrontational — it holds up an unforgiving mirror to the Dutch.

The reputation of Joost van Ginkel (born: 1971) is rising in the Netherlands and abroad. His first, self-produced short (Sand) won numerous awards and was selected for the Venice film festival in 2008. His first feature (170Hz) won several awards at the Dutch film festival in 2011. The international cast hails from Bulgaria, Sweden, Burkina Faso, Serbia, and the Netherlands.

Diederik van Hoogstraten