ABSTRACT

Chapter one is structured according to a gliding scale: mirror scenes are discussed in a variety of films, but each case confronts us with ever more horrifying encounters with the unfathomable strangers within us. ALS TWEE DRUPPELS WATER is pivoted around presumed resemblance, whereas mirrors are avoided in Milo (due to the boy's abundant hair growth) as well as in Riphagen (due to the protagonist's amoral principles). Shots of shattered glass are seminal in both the war picture SÜSKIND and the feminist GEBROKEN SPIEGELS about a serial killer. After explaining how mirrors can help to ‘traverse the fantasy’, the chapter ends with an analysis of the psychological thriller ZWART WATER about a girl with a gift for seeing spectral apparitions.

KEYWORDS

Mirror scenes – presumed resemblance – confining symbolic identities – traversing the fantasy – spectral apparition

One evening, the timid cigar shop owner Hennie Ducker in Rademakers’ ALS TWEE DRUPPELS WATER (1963) sees a parachutist descend from the sky. This secret agent named Dorbeck turns out to be his spitting image, except that Ducker is blond and Dorbeck has black hair. Their encounter comes after a remark by Ducker's friend Hubach stating that the war would already have been over if everyone had joined the Resistance. ‘Not everyone is a hero’, Ducker replies, but the meeting with Dorbeck offers him the opportunity to do his bit. The secret agent gives Ducker a couple of assignments, and the latter is happy to fulfil them. Since Ducker becomes a fugitive after his own wife betrayed him to the Germans, Dorbeck brings him to a new home for shelter. Dorbeck has to leave right away, but Ducker takes his Leica camera because he wants to record ‘this historical moment’. The next shot is shown via a big mirror, so that the camera seems to have crossed the 180 degrees axis: it looks as if Dorbeck and Ducker have switched places. Dorbeck says it is too dark in the room to take a photograph, but Ducker, while requesting his look-alike to stand still, takes one anyway. Dorbeck then asks Ducker to open a suitcase, and the latter complies with this request, which is still shown via the mirror.