The White Castle
(Het witte kasteel)
Screening on Film
Directed by Johan van der Keuken.
The Netherlands, 1973, 16mm, color, 78 min.
Dutch with English subtitles.
The Netherlands, 1973, 16mm, color, 78 min.
Dutch with English subtitles.
Part of van der Keuken’s North/South series, The White Castle focuses on the impact of the West on the underclass: on the concrete realities of their daily life and on the way their existence is isolated and frustrated. Interweaving images of the Spanish tourist mecca of Formentara, a community center in Columbus, Ohio, and factories in the Netherlands, the film vividly illustrates the fragmented, alienated lives that the market economy produces and chillingly portrays what van der Keuken saw as “a conveyor belt [that] runs across the world.”