still: Sweet Dreams©EmoWeemhoff-Lemming Film

The sudden death of the plantation owner and family patriarch Jan exposes the cracks and hypocrisy in his family’s world. He has an illegitimate son whose mother Siti (played by model Hayati Azis) is a local Indonesian woman. His relatives are running out of money. The workers in the plantation are growing restless…

Sendijarević received rave reviews for her debut feature, Take Me Somewhere Nice (2019), set in Bosnia and which screened in Cannes Acid. 

The geographical focus of her new film, produced Dutch outfit Lemming and exec-produced by Sendijarević herself, is altogether different. “I felt the desire to understand a little more about the country I grew up in and where I’ve lived now for 26 years,” the director explains why she has now chosen to train her eye on a chequered episode of Dutch history.

The white European characters in the film sometimes behave monstrously. They’re smug, racist and convinced of their own superiority. Nonetheless, at times, audiences are likely to feel sympathy for them. Sendijarević tried to treat her Dutch protagonists as humans with their own vulnerabilities, not as monsters.

“I didn’t set out to make a film that would just point the finger and give a black and white portrayal of the bad guys and the good guys, so to say. I wanted to understand a bit more about the complexity of colonial dynamics and the effect that has on personal relationships,” the director explains her even-handed approach. 

She adds that “these colonial dynamics still exist” and that there are plenty of Europeans, including filmmakers, “who unconsciously assume that Western European ways of doing things are superior.”

Visually, Sweet Dreams is very stylised. It also comes laced with dark humour. “It’s not a conventional period film,” Sendijarević acknowledges. “I tried to make it more like a surrealist bridge to the past. Through that, I wanted to make a mirror to our times here and now…a slightly absurdist mirror. In spite of the difficult subject, I also wanted the film to be in certain ways entertaining.”

It is a very ambitious movie that its director was trying to make in the middle of a global pandemic. “I was prepared that it would be a complex project. Of course, I didn’t expect Covid to happen!” In the end, the film was shot on Réunion Island instead of in Java, as was originally planned. It helped that Réunion is still defined as a region of France. The filmmakers were therefore able to pay for goods and services using euros.

The film has a very striking performance from newcomer Hayati Azis as the beautiful and mysterious maid who has a child with the colonial overlord. “I was looking for an actress who would be fearless and who would not play this role in a victimised way…I wanted someone with a rebellious spirit,” the director remembers. “Azis isn’t experienced as an actor but, thanks to her modelling, knew just how to “seduce the camera, how to use very minimal gestures to make a very big impression.”

No, Sendijarević acknowledges, this wasn’t an easy movie to make - but it was a rewarding one. “There were moments when I felt a lot of joy, especially in in my connection with the actors. It was a group that was so well connected…at the same time, this was the biggest project I have ever done. The heaviness of it sometimes would weigh on my shoulders. But all throughout the process, I was never in despair that we wouldn’t be able to do it.”

Sweet Dreams is produced by Lemming Film (NL), in co-production with Plattform Produktion (SE), Film Ï Vast (SE), Talamedia (ID) in collaboration with broadcaster VPRO (NL). The film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund, Netherlands Film Production Incentive, CoBo Fund, Swedish Film Institute, CNC Tax Rebate International Productions and Creative Europe Media. The film is sold internationally by Greek outfit, Heretic. Gusto is handling distribution of Sweet Dreams in the Netherlands. 

Interview by Geoffrey Macnab