Heidi Ewert

A Brothers Grimm fairy tale involving siblings finding a gingerbread house in the middle of the forest owned by an evil witch who captures them and by fattening them, intends to have them for her meal.

“Ciske de Rat” belongs to the Dickensean “little man’s hard life” model and tells a deceptively simple story about a boy in modern Netherlands. Persecution, loneliness, adults’ hostility, fear, mixture of obstinacy and tenderness, and even an imprisonment. Excellent camera movement and delicate portraying of Ciske’s fragile soul put this film out of merely historical context and ensure its place in the history of great cinema.