Housewitz
Tragicomic documentary in which Oeke Hoogendijk sketches a haunting portrait of her Jewish mother. For decades, her mother has refused to leave her home in Amstelveen.
Lous, the mother of filmmaker Oeke Hoogendijk, has a recurring nightmare in which she doesn’t know how to get home, just like the day when as a Jewish girl she was deported.
Scenes which at first sight seem very ordinary – an elderly woman in a living room watching television with her cat – gradually develop into the troubling portrait of an astute woman who has to live each day with the Holocaust as her housemate. Even the Christmas tree, which makes her as happy as a child, still reminds her of the Westerbork concentration camp.
Through their tragicomic telephone conversations and a web camera in the living room, Oeke brings us exceptionally close to her mother. She opens up to us completely, showing her sadness as well as her sharp sense of humour. The filmmaker maintains this clever balance thanks to delicate editing, interspersing her mother’s camp memories with the joys of a TV travel program and the calming effects of house music.