It is difficult writing about a film you should be writing nothing about, other than to say how, maybe even more so than Van Warmerdam’s previous works, it is complex, funny, shocking, iconoclastic and at times downright astonishing. Also, that you are continually wrong-footed by a series of increasingly audacious and mind-boggling U-turns before a climax that is out of this world. But no spoilers. The best way to watch this film is to know as little as possible about it in advance. So only the most basic of information follows.

Nr.10** follows Günter (Tom Dewispelaere) who plays an actor within a small theatre troupe. He is father to the adult Lizzy and is conducting an illicit affair with acting colleague Isabel, and continually sees, in his mind’s eye, the image of a woman and a small child. Günter shows little interest either in his past or his parentage and, strangely, his progress in life seems to be very much the concern of higher echelons within the Catholic Church. But his destiny is changed irrevocably when a sinister character stops him on a bridge and utters a single word – ‘kamaihí.’

Van Warmerdam stresses how this is a tale very much told in the telling and one which defies classification in terms of genre (a word he very much dislikes).

“When I start writing, I am just constructing and putting scenes one behind the other to arrive somewhere I have never been to before,” he says. He bemoans the “script doctor” approach whereby an opening scene doubles as a genre template for what is to come. By the end of Nr.10, therefore, we are light years away from the opening scene, in terms of tone, personnel, visuals, and indeed genre.

To repeat, the best way to see Nr.10 is having avoided all publicity about it in advance. To underline this, Van Warmerdam explains a trip he once made to the cinema only to find that the film he wanted to see was sold out. So he bought a ticket for the film which had already started showing on the other screen, a strange looking Nazi-themed offering that he had severe doubts about, until a Hitler lookalike appeared on screen to say ‘heil me.’ At which point Van Warmerdam realised he was watching the classic black comedy To Be Or Not To Be, directed by the Jewish émigré Ernst Lubitsch. He had no idea what to expect, and found himself subsequently mesmerised.

“It is nice to know nothing. In fact, it is best to know nothing.”

That said, it is not giving so much away to say that the Catholic Church receives somewhat of a kicking in Nr.10. Van Warmerdam tells how, while writing the screenplay, he undertook research into alien and exotic languages. He came across the story of an American missionary who discovered an indigenous tribe within the Amazon rain forest who spoke a language devoid both of numbers and of reference either to the past or future. “And they did not believe in any god, and so the priest stopped being a priest. Why? He fell off his faith because these people are happy, they live in paradise. And he [the priest] has to tell them they are not in paradise and that there is a better paradise when they are dead, but that they have to lead a different life to get there. ‘What a bullshit,’ he said, and that is what inspired me,” says Van Warmerdam of some of his film’s key later scenes.

Nr.10 stars Pierre Bokma, who notably starred in Van Warmerdam’s Waiter as a psychotic diner who all but drowns the waiter of a top restaurant (played by the director) in the establishment’s fish tank. The film also features star turns from well-known German comedian/actor Dirk Böhling as the Catholic monsignor and top Dutch theatre actor Hans Kesting as the head of the acting troupe. Frieda Barnhard (who impressed in Stefanie Kolk’s 2019 short Eyes on the Road*) plays daughter Lizzy while Anniek Pheifer hits perfect duplicitous high notes as Gunter’s colleague/lover Isabel.

“Good actors like to be directed,” says Van Warmerdam admiringly of his cast.

Shooting on the film in the Belgian Ardennes and across The Netherlands was completed in February 2020, just before the pandemic changed everybody’s life. Despite this, Van Warmerdam tells how the most satisfying part of the whole process was during the edit (firstly on Zoom, then within the editing suite) with his long-time collaborator, editor Job ter Burg, whose mantra is that “everything is in the material, hidden or otherwise.”

The director describes their relationship and the business of cutting. “We make each other stronger. We have no ego, we never fight or have frustrations or anything like that. We only work on how to tell the story, what to put in, what to take out,” he says.

“And as it develops, it becomes more and more satisfying, doing wonders, making miracles during the montage. You remove something and then the two scenes work together. The sun starts shining and it becomes a hundred percent better. How is that possible? The film starts to speak. It grows into something different to what you ever had in mind. And it makes you happy, and that is exciting,” Van Warmerdam ends.

Nr.10 is produced by Graniet Film (The Netherlands) in co-production with Czar Film (Belgium). Sales is handled by Nine Film.

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*Film supported by the Netherlands Film Fund
**Film supported by the Netherlands Film Fund and the Netherlands Film Production Incentive