Klokkenluider
February 2014, a simpler time in a simpler place, a picturesque village in the Flemish region of Belgium where even the smiling welcome in the local patisserie makes the bread buyers nervous, a husband and wife who have rented a house nearby ostensibly for his fortieth birthday party but in fact using it as a hideout which they have taken under false identities, “Ewan and Silke Appleby” on the run from powerful parties unknown and fearful for their lives.
Determined that nobody must suspect them even as they suspect everyone, they are awaiting the arrival of a high profile journalist to whom IT specialist Ewan will confess the discovery he happened upon while working on laptops at Downing Street, a devastating secret which he feels it is in the public interest to reveal but which the government has gone to great lengths to conceal, hence the after-dark arrival of two gentlemen to act as protectors for the couple.
The directorial debut of Kill List’s Neil Maskell, the name Klokkenluider is taken from the Dutch for “bell ringer” which in this context translates more directly as “whistleblower,” Ewan and Silke (Amit Shah and Sura Dohnke) in possession of information of which they would rather have remained ignorant that could possibly take down the government yet which they feel compelled to share, a burden wearing them down and burning them up.
Into this fraught situation come Tom Burke and Roger Evans as Chris and Glynn, one calm and reasonable and the other a liability incapable of maintaining a cover story or limiting himself to one drink, unstable, hot tempered and one wrong word away from losing the last friend willing to stand up for him, Ewan and Silke quickly realising their armed bodyguards are as frightening as the more vague threat from which they are hiding.
The warm yellow glow of the wall mounted lights illuminating the expensively upholstered furniture in the drawing room where doors locked and bolted will not prevent bullets from penetrating the picture windows, the ambience at odds with the tension which shifts from awkward politeness and occasional camaraderie to confrontational rivalry, nor does the arrival of reporter Flo (Doctor Who’s Jenna Coleman) on a storm front of attitude reassure them or assuage their doubts.
Caustic, dismissive and inflexible in what she expects from the exchange, Klokkenluider is a black comedy of dashed hopes, trampled optimism and good intentions dumped in a shallow grave, the pleasant countryside retreat belying the pressure cooker in the house where every character reacts differently and no one can really be trusted when the truth is whatever will look best on a banner headline.
Klokkenluider is on general release from Friday 1st September
