De Man met de Hond

• 1998
• 1 hr 26 mins
• NR

• Watchlist

A strange young man decides to invent for himself the happy and stable life he's never actually had in this Dutch comedy. Kees (Ramsey Nasr) is a gently eccentric loner who takes his imaginary dog for a walk each evening and likes to listen in on his neighbors' conversations. One of the reasons he takes an interest in the lives of other families is that he has little family history of his own; his father is dead, and his mother, no pillar of behavioral stability, destroyed all their family photos in an emotional episode prior to her current stay in a mental hospital. When the chronically unemployed Kees gets a job at a bank, many of his co-workers don't know what to make of him, and scarcely anyone talks to him -- until the day someone comments on a photo in his wallet. Though he doesn't actually know the woman in the picture, Kees tells them the woman in the photo is his girlfriend and starts spinning tales about their "relationship." Before long, Kees has invented an entire alternate personality and is stealing photos from others to fit the new "friends" and "family" he's created. De Man Met De Hond (aka A Man and His Dog) was warmly received in its screenings at the 1999 Rouen Festival of Nordic Film and the Rotterdam Film Festival.