This two-disc set combines a DVD of Jaap van Heusden's short film "OOIT" alongside the complete soundtrack by Minco Eggersman (best known as the vocalist of At the Close of Every Day, who seem to be a some sort of surprisingly good Dutch Idaho analogue). Notably, this is Eggersman's first real attempt at a soundtrack, although his first solo album "The Wagon Fair" was largely inspired by "The Devil's Playground" (which is one of my favorite documentaries ever, incidentally).
Van Heusden's forty-minute film follows a mentally disabled man named Jos through the course of two days. His life is structured entirely around a booklet of instructions that he wears around his neck, but a nasty surprise on his 34th birthday forces him to confront a rather morbid and unfamiliar set of circumstances in which his book provides no help. The story is told with a surprising degree of nuance and empathy and manages to be engaging and warm without losing its disquieting, darkly funny edge. "OOIT" is an excellent and inspired work- I hope van Heusden gets to make something feature-length soon. (Film : 9/10)
As for ME's soundtrack...well...I have some mixed feelings. On one hand, the twenty tracks of warm acoustic guitar instrumentals are quite pleasant and serve the film well. However, the music is quite understated (necessarily, given its purpose) and largely incidental in nature. A few tracks stand out (the bittersweet, shuffling "de metro naar de rest van de wereld" is excellent, for example), but generally all of the songs here are too brief and devoid of character to elicit interest on their own when decontextualized from the film. Eggersman has done an excellent job, but there is no real need for the soundtrack to exist as a separate entity. 8/10 --
Anthony D'Amico (4 June, 2009)
